Advocate Prashant Bhushan has challenged that electoral bonds have legalized the anonymous corporate donations that can have serious consequences
New Delhi| CJI SA Bobde on Monday verbally cleared that if the SC had earlier found it unnecessary to put a stay the electoral bonds scheme, it may not stay the scheme even now.
The comments came on a plea by advocates Prashant Bhushan and Shadan Farasat to order stay on Electoral Bonds operation with regards to Delhi Elections.
“We have now discovered some very important documents to show why electoral bonds must be stopped immediately,” argued Prashant Bhushan, while citing ADR’s application. He alleged that the scheme is a means for channelising unaccounted black money in favour of the ruling party. In contrast to the anticipation of opening the scheme exclusively for Lok Sabha election, it has become a mechanism to funnel anonymous funds to fuel political parties.
The EC and RBI had strongly objected to the scheme and RBI also opposed the amendments made in RBI Act and Finance Bill, 2017 as an introduction to Electoral bond scheme.
Also Read: “Submit details of Electoral Bonds receipts to Election Commission”: SC orders political parties
Objections raised by the election commission as well as by Union Law ministry were also mentioned in ADR’s application to reinforce its prayer for stay.
The court initially granted 4 weeks’ time to the EC to file a reply to the plea for the stay of the scheme. Mr Bhushan argued that considering Delhi election is due on February 8 and it would be too late by then. The court finally settled the deadline to file its reply in 2 weeks.
95% of the payments through electoral bonds till date had been routed to the ruling party, said Mr Bhushan.
However, the government has justified the scheme as an experiment to eliminate black money.
The Election commission maintained that the voters should know the source of funding of political parties who endorse these candidates.
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