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Judgment of the Supreme Court
On February 15th, the Supreme Court of India abolished the provisions of the electoral bond system. The judgment was given by a constitution bench of five judges chaired by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, along with Justices Sanjeev Khanna, BR Gavai, JB Pardiwala, and Manoj Mishra. The electoral bond scheme was introduced by the current BJP government led by the Prime minster Narendra Modi in 2018.
The petition against the electoral bonds was filed by four different petitioners namely, The Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), Congress leader Jaya Thakur, the Communist Party of India (Marxist), and the common cause . in the judgement, the Supreme Court has also directed the State Bank of India (SBI) to stop the electoral bond scheme from taking immediate effect and to submit all the details of electoral bonds to the Election Commission of India (ECI) within 3 weeks. SBI is also directed to give the details of electoral bonds received by different political parties and make all details available in the public domain within a week.
The Supreme Court while declaring the judgment against the electoral bonds scheme said that it violates the idea of the right to information (RTI). Voters have the right to information before casting their votes. apex court also said that Electoral bonds are not the only way to curb black money; there are other means too. The Chief Justice of India advocated, that information about political funding is essential for executing the right to vote.
What is the electoral bond system?
This scheme of electoral bonds was introduced in the Finance Bill 2017 during the Union budget 2017–18. Through this system, the different political parties receive funds from individuals businessmen’s and corporate firms. The interesting feature of this scheme was that the donor’s name remained unknown. Under the system, the bond must be bought from SBI, with 15 days as a validity period, and can be donated to any party. This means that the ruling party has all access to the data, as the State Bank of India is publicly owned.
Who received the most?
According to the data from the Election Commission, the saffron party BJP has received the highest amount of funds—more than half of all electoral donations between 2018 and 2022. A total donation of Rs 850.4 crore from 12,167 donations was received by all the national parties in the financial year 2022–23. Out of which, 719.8 crore was alone received by the BJP, followed by 79.9 crore received by Congress, and the remaining amount by other national parties. There is an increase in the total donations to the national parties by Rs 91.7 crore from the last financial year of 2021-22.
Donations to the BJP increased from Rs 614.62 crore during the financial year 2021-22 to Rs. 719.8 crore during the financial year 2022-2023, which indicates very significant rise, whereas donations to the Congress Party decreased from 95.45 crore during the financial year 2021-22 to Rs. 79.92 crore in the financial year 2022-2023.
Top donors in FY 2022–23
Delhi, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka, and West Bengal are the top five states that contributed the highest donations to the national parties in the financial year 2022–23.
Prudent electoral trust donated Rs. 257.15 crore to the BJP and AAP together, which makes it the highest donor, followed by M/S MKJ Enterprises Limited, which donated Rs. 45 crore to the Congress Party, and BG Shirke Construction Technology Private Limited, which donated Rs. 35 crores to the BJP.
