New Delhi: The Supreme Court has struck down petitions seeking the constitution of a special investigation team (SIT) to probe into alleged quid pro quo in the purchase of electoral bonds, observing that the complaints are based on assumptions that would require it to “embark on a roving inquiry”, the Indian Express has reported.
A three-judge bench, headed by Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, also noted that the petitioners had not yet exhausted the legal remedies in front of them before moving the highest court of the land, therefore, the apex court’s intervention at this stage would be “premature and inappropriate”.
“At the present stage, absent a recourse to the remedies which are available under the law to pursue such grievances, it would both be premature and inappropriate for this court; premature because the intervention of this court under Article 32 of the constitution must be preceded by the invocation of normal remedies under the law and contingent upon the failure of those remedies; and inappropriate because the intervention of this court at the present stage would postulate that the normal remedies which are available under the law would not be efficacious,” the court observed.
It goes on to say, “Individual grievances of this nature in regard to the presence or absence of quid pro quo would have to be pursued on the basis of the remedies available under the law. Likewise, where there is a refusal to investigate or a closure report has been filed, recourse can be taken to appropriate remedies under the law governing criminal procedure or as the case may be under Article 226 of the constitution.”
On the petitions, the Bench said, “[The petitions] are founded on two assumptions that there would be prima facie an element of quid pro quo where the date of purchase of the electoral bonds and the donation to a political party is in proximity to the award of a contract or change in policy; and that there is an involvement of certain officials of the investigative agencies, as a consequence of which an investigation by the normal process of the law would not be fair or independent.”
The court noted that going by the “assumptions” of the petitioners it would need “to embark upon a roving inquiry into the purchase of the electoral bonds” and that there is an angel of “quid pro quo”.
Another plea of the petitioners to order the authorities to recover the donations received by political parties through electoral bonds “on the basis that they are proceeds of crime”, by reopening their Income Tax assessments was also turned down. The court said, ” [These] impinge upon the statutory functioning of authorities constituted under the law to make enquiries in that regard.”
