Watch live | Supreme Court will continue to hear petitions challenging controversial electoral bonds

Watch live proceedings of Supreme Court hearing on electoral bonds validity. On the first day of the hearing on Tuesday, the top court flagged the possibility of electoral bonds being used to trade favours. During the hearing, the five-judge Constitution bench said its 2019 order asking political parties to furnish details of electoral bonds with the Election Commission of India (ECI) is a continuing order.

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New Delhi: A five-judge Constitution Bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud will continue hearing on a batch of petitions challenging the electoral bonds scheme. The bench, also comprising justices Sanjiv Khanna, B R Gavai, J B Pardiwala, and Manoj Misra, is hearing a clutch of petitions challenging the validity of the Centre's electoral bonds scheme as a source of political funding.

While hearing the petitions on Tuesday, the apex court said that it would pursue details of donations to political parties through the electoral bond route. During the hearing, the five-judge Constitution Bench asked the Election Commission to keep ready for its perusal and the details of electoral bond funding of political parties as per the Supreme Court's interim order of April 12, 2019.

Kapil Sibal, representing one of the petitioners, argued that the electoral bonds scheme was only meant to make political parties richer. He told the Supreme Court that funding through electoral bonds is not restricted to elections, as there are no spending rules involved in funding of political parties through the electoral bond scheme.

Sibal contended before a five-judge constitution bench citing drawbacks of donations via the electoral bond scheme received by the political parties through the corporate sector.

On October 16, the Supreme Court had said that it would refer the challenge to the electoral bonds scheme to at least a five-judge bench of the apex court. Petitions have been filed against the scheme by the Association for Democratic Reforms, Communist Party of India (Marxist), Dr Jaya Thakur (Congress leader), Spandan Biswal, and others.

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