Electoral bonds: SC asks parties for funding details

April 12, 2019 10:58

The Supreme Court on Friday refused any interim stay on the electoral bond scheme and directed all parties to submit details of political funding to the Election Commission in "sealed covers".

The court's interim order, asked political parties to give details of donors who donated through electoral bonds, the amounts received from them, the details of payment received on each bond etc., to the Election Commission by May 30.

The top court was hearing pleas by the CPI(M) and the NGO, Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR) challenging the scheme. Appearing for petitioner ADR, advocate Prashant Bhushan had earlier said that according to the Election Commission figures, bonds worth Rs 210 crore of the total Rs 221 crore purchased had gone to the BJP.

However, objecting to it, Attorney General K K Venugopal said Bhushan was making an election speech.

Responding to queries from the apex court earlier, he had said transparency cannot be the mantra and my opinion is voters have the right to know about their candidates why should they know where the money of political parties is coming from.

The BJP-led NDA government had announced electoral bonds in the earlier budget, claiming that the scheme would clean up political funding. On Thursday, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley defended the use of electoral bonds, saying that if the donors are asked to disclose names of political parties to whom they give money, it would result in return to the earlier system of usage of cash and black money in political funding.

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