New Delhi: The Supreme Court reserved its order on a plea filed by the Association for Democratic Reforms(ADR) seeking a stay on the fresh sale of electoral bonds from April 1 till the court decides on their validity.
It asked the government to look into the angle of misuse of funds for illegal purposes, terrorism etc by the political parties through electoral bonds. It clarified that the plea does not doubt the intention of the political parties regarding terrorism, or having any agenda to incite violence, but just want the government to examine that angle.
The bench comprising of CJI SA Bobde, Justice AS Bopanna and Justice V Ramasubramanian asked the government today "what is the control of the government on the money it receives from the electoral bond".
"We don't want to get into the political arena and this is not a comment on any political party but what if a political party wants to organise a protest which sponsors violence?," asked CJI.
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Citing an example, the CJI asked, "If suppose, there is a political party and it buys a bond worth Rs 100 crores. How can it be ascertained that a certain sum would be spent on party progress and some on protests etc? What is the method to check?
Advocate Prashant Bhushan appearing for ADR had submitted before the court today that Electoral Bonds will legalise black money, promote money laundering, will help the big corporations in bribing the ruling political party for favours and anonymity, which ultimately hamper transparency and democracy. He said that even RBI and EC had expressed their discomfort with the scheme due to its anonymous nature.
"It is being released ahead of five state elections. Some amount will be credited to the state, some will go to the centre depending on what quid pro is," argued Bhushan.
On the contention of black money, AG KK Venugopal countered saying that it can not be black money because the payment has to be made either in cheque or Demand Draft and the political parties also need to file Income Tax returns. As per Bhushan, EC was not in favour of bonds but today in the court it submitted that it supports it.
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