Supreme Court terming electoral bonds unconstitutional comes as huge blow to Narendra Modi and his party ahead of Lok Sabha polls

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The Supreme Court on Thursday declared that the electoral bonds introduced by the Centre’s Narendra Modi government in 2017 was unconstitutional. The Modi government had amended three Acts of the parliament namely the RBI Act, the Income Tax Act and the Representation of People Act in 2017 to allow individuals and entities to make secret donations to political parties. As expected the BJP has been the biggest beneficiary of these secret donations, receiving Rs. 6,564 crore since 2018.

electoral bonds

The Supreme Bench comprising Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud and Justices Sanjiv Khanna, BR Gavai, JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra ordered the State Bank of India to immediately stop receiving the electoral bonds and provides the list of these donors to the Election Commission of India, which should publish the names of these donors on its website.

Here are the five key points from today’s landmark judgment, as reported by the Bar and Bench website.

1. The issuing bank, that is SBI, shall immediately stop issuing electoral bonds;

2. SBI should submit the details of the political parties that have received contributions through electoral bonds from April 12, 2019, till date to the Election Commission of India (ECI).

3. SBI (in the information given to ECI) must disclose details of each electoral bond encashed by political parties, which shall include the date of encashment and the denomination of the electoral bond. This information is to be submitted to the ECI by March 6, 2024.

4. The ECI shall publish this information on its official website within one week of receiving this information from the SBI, that is by March 13.

5. Electoral bonds which are within the validity period of 15 days but which have not been encashed by political parties yet, shall be returned by the political parties to the purchaser depending on who is in possession of the bond to the issuing bank. The issuing bank upon return of the valid bond shall refund the amount to the purchaser’s account.

According to an analysis by the ADR, 27, 133 electoral bonds worth Rs. 15, 946.31 crores were issued by the SBI since 2018 till November 2023. Of them, the BJP alone received Rs. 6,564. It’s in this context that experts are terming today’s verdict as a huge blow to the BJP, which has used this secret election funding to win elections.

The ADR data last year had revealed that during the six-year period, more than 52% of BJP’s total donations came from electoral bonds worth Rs 5271.9751 cr, while all other National parties amassed Rs 1783.9331 cr. The Congress declared the second highest donations from bonds of Rs 952.2955 cr (61.54% of its total
donations) followed by AITC which declared Rs 767.8876 cr (93.27%).

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