In a statement filed before the Supreme Court in the electoral bonds case, Attorney General R Venkataramani has told the Supreme Court that the citizens right to know the source of electoral funds is not absolute, but is subject to reasonable restrictions.
According to the media reports, the Attorney General refuted the argument of the petitioners, who challenged the electoral bonds scheme stating that citizens have the right to know about the source of funding of a political party.
Advocate Prashant Bhushan appearing for NGO Association for Democratic Reforms, had submitted that the electoral bonds scheme was challenged for the fact that it was passed as a money bill; secondly it made way for anonymous funding which violates the citizens' right to information; and, it promotes corruption, as a large amount of funding comes to political parties from companies which have received some benefits from them.
The scheme introduced in 2018 was challenged by the Association for Democratic Reforms, Communist Party of India (Marxist), Dr Jaya Thakur (Congress leader), Spandan Biswal, and others.
The apex court had in 2021 by a detailed interim order, had declined to put on hold of the scheme and rejected the charge that it was totally opaque. The apprehension that foreign corporate houses may buy the bonds and attempt to influence the electoral process in the country, was "misconceived", it had said.
The court had then also said that under Clause 3 of the Scheme, the Bonds may be purchased only by a person, who is a citizen of India or a company incorporated or established here. It also noted the purchase as well as encashment of the bonds, happening only through banking channels, is always reflected in documents that eventually come to the public domain.
The petitioners claimed the identity of the purchaser of the electoral bonds is kept anonymous and the real anonymity is when the money is transferred to a political party, who has transferred to which political party is anonymised from the public domain, and that is the real challenge.
A five-judge constitution bench of the Supreme Court is set to begin hearing the batch of pleas challenging the validity of the electoral bond scheme for political party funding on October 31.
