SC to consider listing PIL for court-monitored SIT probe into electoral bond scheme

The Supreme Court on Friday, 12 July, agreed to consider listing a public interest litigation that urged a court-monitored investigation into the electoral bonds scheme.

The PIL, filed by NGOs Common Cause and the Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL), alleges an "apparent quid pro quo" between political parties, corporations, and investigative agencies.

A bench comprising Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud and justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra took note of the submissions of lawyer Prashant Bhushan, appearing for the NGOs, that despite his several visits to the apex court registry in the last few months, the pleas are yet to be listed.

"Please send an email," the CJI said. Bhushan said he has sent emails as well.

"Send it today. It will be listed," the CJI said.

Terming it as a "scam", the plea sought a direction to the authorities to investigate the source of funding of "shell companies and loss-making companies” which made donations to various political parties, as has been disclosed by the data released by the Election Commission (EC).

The petition has also sought a direction to the authorities to recover the money donated by companies as part of "quid pro quo arrangements where these are found to be proceeds of crime".

A five-judge Constitution bench had on 15 February scrapped the electoral bonds scheme of anonymous political funding introduced by the BJP government.

Following the top court’s judgement, the State Bank of India, the authorised financial institution under the scheme, had shared the data with the EC, which later made it public.

The electoral bonds scheme, which was notified by the government on January 2, 2018, was pitched as an alternative to cash donations made to political parties as part of its efforts to bring in transparency in political funding.

"The electoral bond scam has a money trail unlike the 2G scam or the coal scam, where allocations of spectrum and coal mining leases were arbitrarily made, but there was no evidence of a money trail. Yet this court ordered court-monitored investigations in both those cases, appointed special public prosecutors and formed special courts to deal with those cases," the plea said.

It claimed that several firms which were under investigation by these agencies have donated large sums of money to the ruling party, to potentially influence the outcome of probes.