The Supreme Court junked a bunch of petitions seeking review of the Constitutional Bench judgment quashing the electoral bonds scheme 2018 for being unconstitutional. After going through the review petitions, a three-judge bench headed by CJI DY Chandrachud said: "There is no error apparent on the face of the record. No case for review under Order XLVII Rule 1 of the Supreme Court Rules 2013. The review petitions are, therefore, dismissed."
It was a unanimous verdict by which a five-judge Constitution Bench had held the electoral bonds scheme unconstitutional, saying that denying voters the right to know the details of funding of political parties would lead to a dichotomous situation and the funding of political parties cannot be treated differently from that of the candidates who contest elections.
In its judgment on February 15, the Supreme Court had directed the SBI to stop immediately from the date of judgment issuance any and every electoral bond. The ECI was ordered to put on its website the details of the political parties that have received contributions through electoral bonds since April 2019.
Of course, noting the possibilities of various frauds committed through electoral bonds, CJI Chandrachud said, "The very right to information of the voters cannot be derogated for curbing black money in elections." Justices B.R. Gavai, J.B. Padriwala, and Manoj Misra agreed with this opinion.
Besides, it further argued that the electoral bond scheme is "not the only means for curbing black money" in electoral financing and there are other alternatives which substantially fulfill the purpose and impact the right to information minimally when compared to the impact of electoral bonds on the right to information.
Justice Sanjiv Khanna wrote an independent but concurring judgment. "I have applied proportionality standards too but slightly varied variations. My conclusions are the same", Justice Khanna said.
One of the review petitions contested that the Supreme Court had annulled the electoral bonds scheme "without noticing that in doing so it is acting as an appellate authority over the Parliament, substituting its wisdom on a matter which falls in the exclusive province of legislative and executive policy."
However, the apex court dismissed the entire batch of review petitions in chambers, along with the application for listing the review pleas in open court.
In August this year, the top court declined to entertain a public interest litigation (PIL) seeking a Special Investigative Team (SIT) probe under the supervision of a retired apex court judge into an alleged scam in poll financing using electoral bonds.
A bench headed by CJI Chandrachud said that an SIT can't be constituted to investigate "quid pro quo" unless there is an FIR already registered on the issue espoused in the PIL, and added that the ordinary course of law may redress the grievances raised in the plea.
The PIL, filed by Common Cause and Centre for Public Interest Litigation, had claimed that the data on electoral bonds, which was released after the directions of the top court, indicates that the majority of these bonds have been apparently provided as quid pro quo deals by corporates with political parties for receiving contracts, licenses, and leases from the governments or authorities.
Electoral bonds were issued by corporates to political parties as consideration for beneficial policy changes and simply around the corner of action by agencies like the Enforcement Directorate (ED), Income Tax Department, or Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
