The Supreme Court directed the parties to reveal the identity of the donors of Electoral Bonds. However, the apex court refused to put a stay on the scheme.
New Delhi| Delivering its interim order, the Supreme Court on Friday asked all the political parties in the country to furnish their donor details to Election Commission. The Supreme Court directed the parties to reveal the identity of the donors of Electoral Bonds. However, the apex court refused to put a stay on the scheme.
The three-judge Supreme Court bench set the deadline of May 30 for the parties to submit the details of the amount and bank account of donors to the poll panel.
The order was pronounced by a bench comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices Deepak Gupta and Sanjiv Khanna. An NGO had filed a plea in Supreme Court against the validity of electoral bonds. The plea sought to put a stay on the issuance of the anonymous bonds to make public the names of donors so as to make the process transparent.
On January 2 last year, the government brought the Electoral Bond Scheme 2018. According to the scheme, political parties who are registered under Section 29A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 and who had secured not less than one per cent of votes polled in the last Lok Sabha or the Legislative Assembly elections, shall be eligible to receive electoral bonds. The bonds can be purchased by a citizen of India or entities incorporated or established in India.
The scheme faced strong opposition from activists who criticized it saying the anonymous donation betrays the purpose of transparency in political funding.
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