New Delhi: It is stunning that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which came up with the dubious, now-scrapped scheme and held office for six years, despite having encashed a whopping Rs 8,251 crore in electoral bonds, said it had not maintained “particulars” of the numerous donors it had. Neither did the Trinamool Congress, Congress, Bharat Rashtra Samithi and Biju Janata Dal, among other large beneficiaries of the scheme, put the donors on record to the Election Commission in sealed covers.
The suspense was over yesterday as the Supreme Court forced the State Bank of India to cough up the unique bond numbers, and the EC made them public.
But why did it take for citizens to wait for the SBI to share unique bond numbers?
On March 18, the Supreme Court directed the SBI to disclose the unique numbers stamped on the electoral bonds, but it declined to issue any instruction to the SBI to reveal data prior to April 12, 2019 on the grounds that it would amount to “reopening” its February 14 judgment (which had struck down the electoral bonds scheme).
But would it have meant a reopening of the order?
The apex court’s interim orders passed on the case in 2019 and in 2023 make it explicit that details should have been made available to the Election Commission. The Supreme Court, in both its 2019 and 2023 interim orders, had put the onus categorically on the political parties and the EC to account for the money, amounts and who the donors were.
Supreme Court: 2019
On April 17, 2019, Jagdeep S. Chokkar of the electoral reforms watchdog, Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR), one of the primary petitioners, had cited four paragraphs which formed the operative part of the SC’s April 12, 2019 order in The Wire.
- All that we would like to state for the present is that the rival contentions give rise to weighty issues which have a tremendous bearing on the sanctity of the electoral process in the country. Such weighty issues would require an in-depth hearing which cannot be concluded and the issues answered within the limited time that is available before the process of funding through the Electoral Bonds comes to a closure, as per the schedule noted earlier.
- The Court, therefore, has to ensure that any interim arrangement that may be made would not tilt the balance in favour of either of the parties but that the same ensures adequate safeguards against the competing claims of the parties which are yet to be adjudicated.
- In the above perspective, according to us, the just and proper interim direction would be to require all the political parties who have received donations through Electoral Bonds to submit to the Election Commission of India in sealed cover, detailed particulars of the donors as against the (sic) each Bond; the amount of each such bond and the full particulars of the credit received against each bond, namely, the particulars of the bank account to which the amount has been credited and the date of each such credit.
- The above details will be furnished forthwith in respect of Electoral Bonds received by a political party till date. The details of such other bonds that may be received by such a political party up to the date fixed for issuing such bonds as per the Note of the Ministry of Finance dated 28.2.2019, i.e. 15.5.2019 will be submitted on or before 30th May, 2019. The sealed covers will remain in the custody of the Election Commission of India and will abide by such orders as may be passed by the Court.
This explains why some parties, of course excluding the BJP, Congress, TMC, BRS, BJD and other big fish, did the right thing by naming their donors in sealed covers then itself.
The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), Samajwadi Party (SP), Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), Janata Dal (United), Goa Forward Party, Janata Dal (Secular) and the Sikkim Democratic Party (SDF) did furnish all details in May, 2019 to the Election Commission.
Supreme Court: 2023
Other parties like the DMK and the AIADMK furnished details including the names of their donors to the Election Commission after the Supreme Court’s 2023 interim order.
On November 2, 2023, the court again ordered the EC that it “shall produce up to date until September 30,2023 in terms of the interim directions which were issued on April 12, 2019.”
Significantly, the party that benefitted the most through electoral bonds – the BJP – defied the interim order while responding to the EC’s call once again, as per the Supreme Court’s 2023 directive. The BJP’s submissions made on November 3, 2023 go ahead and justify the absence of those crucial details, citing scheme rules and of it being anchored in donor anonymity.
The BJP had written to the EC in the submission which is now public, that since electoral bonds were introduced “with the aim of bringing only accounted for funds in political funding while protecting the donors from any consequences therefrom”, it, therefore, “is not required to maintain the names and particulars of the donors of the electoral bonds and as such the party has not maintained these particulars”. It also cited the “applicable laws” to justify its move. The “law” cited is of course now decreed “unconstitutional”.
The opening of the sealed covers by the EC as per the top court’s March 18 order, revealed that the TMC, Congress, Telugu Desam party, YSR Congress, Bharat Rashtra Samithi, and Biju Janata Dal too by not disclosing who had given them bonds, ended up ignoring a key aspect of the Supreme Court’s 2019 interim order.
Vital time was lost in the run up to the general elections as big parties did not furnish the information, even in sealed covers, to the Election Commission.
Citizens need to know who is funding parties asking for their votes, to be able to make sense of their connections to big business, and then make informed choices about who should represent them.
