New Electoral Bond Data to Website: The Election Commission uploaded the new data of electoral bonds received from the Supreme Court registry on March 16 on its website on Sunday. The new data includes information on bonds for the financial year 2017-18.
On March 14, the Commission had uploaded on the website the information about bonds purchased or cashed after April 2019 in two lists of 763 pages. One list contained information about those who bought bonds, while the other contained details of bonds received by political parties.
On the instructions of the Supreme Court, State Bank of India (SBI) had given information related to the bonds to the Election Commission on March 14. It did not contain the unique alpha numeric numbers of the bonds. The court issued a notice to SBI on March 15 and sought its reply by March 18.
According to Election Commission data, BJP has encashed electoral bonds worth a total of Rs 6 thousand 986 crore. The party has received the maximum amount of Rs 2 thousand 555 crore in 2019-20. At the same time, DMK received Rs 656.5 crore through electoral bonds, which also includes Rs 509 crore from lottery king Santiago Martin’s Future Gaming.
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Political parties have asked for unique numbers
Political parties have asked for unique numbers of bonds . According to the data available on the website of the Commission, some parties have asked for unique numbers of bonds from SBI. Trinamool Congress has said that it needs the numbers so that it can follow the directions of the Supreme Court. Bharatiya Janata Party has not made any such appeal to SBI, rather it has given complete data.
Bahujan Samaj Party said that it has not received any donation through electoral bonds. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) also said that it also did not receive donations from electoral bonds. Congress said it will release the data given by SBI to the Election Commission.
What has happened so far in the case related to electoral bonds…
11 March 2024: On March 11, the Supreme Court heard the petition of SBI in the case related to giving information about electoral bonds. SBI had told the court – We have no problem in giving information related to the bond, but it needs some time. On this, CJI DY Chandrachud had asked – What have you done in the 26 days since the last hearing (February 15)?Â
March 4, 2024: SBI filed a petition in the Supreme Court. Time was sought till June 30 to provide information about electoral bonds. Apart from this, the court also heard the petition of Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), in which a contempt case was filed against SBI for not providing information till March 6.
15 February 2024: The Supreme Court had banned the Electoral Bond Scheme for political funding with immediate effect. The Supreme Court had said – this scheme is unconstitutional. Maintaining the secrecy of the bond is unconstitutional. This scheme is a violation of the Right to Information.Â
2 November 2023:Â Supreme Court reserved its decision in the Electoral Bond Scheme case. However, the date of the next hearing was not specified. The court expressed displeasure with the Election Commission for not maintaining data on funding received by parties. The Commission has also directed the political parties to provide information about the amount received through electoral bonds as soon as possible by September 30.
November 1, 2023:Â On behalf of the government, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said that electoral bonds have brought transparency in political donations. Donors do not want the other party to know about their donation. This will not increase the resentment of the other party towards him. On this, the Supreme Court said that if this is the case then why does the ruling party take information about the donations of the opposition? Why can’t the opposition take information about donations?Â
31 October 2023:Â Prashant Bhushan had presented the arguments. He had said that these bonds are only bribes, which influence government decisions. If a citizen has the right to know about the candidates, their assets, their criminal history, then they should also know who is funding the political parties?Â
What is the Electoral Bond Scheme?
The Electoral Bond Scheme was introduced in the 2017 budget by the then Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. The Central Government notified it on 2 January 2018. This is a kind of promissory note. It is also called bank note. Any Indian citizen or company can buy it.
Why did the Electoral Bond Scheme come into controversy?
While presenting it in 2017, Arun Jaitley had claimed that it would bring transparency in the funding of political parties and the election system. Black money will be curbed. At the same time, the protesters said that the identity of the person purchasing electoral bonds is not disclosed, due to which they can become a means of using black money in elections.
The plan was later challenged in 2017 itself, but the hearing began in 2019. On April 12, 2019, the Supreme Court directed all political parties to submit all information related to electoral bonds to the Election Commission in an envelope by May 30, 2019. However, the court did not stop this plan.
Later in December, 2019, petitioner Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) moved an application to stay the scheme. In this, quoting media reports, it was told how the concerns of the Election Commission and the Reserve Bank on the electoral bond scheme were ignored by the Central Government.
