New Delhi: Former election commissioner Ashok Lavasa says that the Supreme Court’s striking down of the Electoral Bonds Scheme as “unconstitutional” should be seen as “another opportunity to refine the system” of political funding and not merely as “victory or defeat”.
In an incisive piece for The Indian Express, Lavasa asks probing questions regarding the way forward for political funding and democracy in India now that the Electoral Bonds Scheme is a thing of the past.
“Will this judgment lead us back to the dark alleys of cash funding? That is a legitimate concern. The government must consult all stakeholders in coming up with another alternative with strong sunshine clauses to address the rot that political funding has fallen into,” he offers, as a way forward.
He asks pointedly about what will happen to the funds raised under the scheme which the top court described as “unconstitutional”. “Finally, will this turn out to be a case of closing the stables after the horses have bolted? What would be the nature and fate of funds raised under an ‘unconstitutional’ scheme? Is the violator entitled to enjoy the fruits of the violation?”
He then goes on to say, “March 13 is expected to lift the veil but will those blinded by the blaze of self-discovered glory see anything pernicious? Let not the outcome of the impending elections cast a shadow on the SC judgement.”
With elections around the corner and a new Lok Sabha set to be constituted soon, he says, “Let us hope the new parliament will bring about a law showing full respect to the findings of the SC so that India can justifiably hail itself as the mother of democracy without being accused of giving democracy a stepmotherly treatment.”
While hoping for more transparency going forward in terms of how political parties operate, he writes, “Let us hope there are no sudden clouds that thwart the SC’s strike… The SC deserves to be complimented for the clarity of its arguments and courage in pronouncing the issues convincingly, rather than providing a robe of legitimacy to naked unconstitutionality.”
The former election commissioner’s tenure at the Election Commission was cut short allegedly for his rulings against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah in the run-up to the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. He had opposed five clean chits given by the poll body to Modi and Shah over alleged violations of the poll code. The Modi government removed him from the Election Commission in July 2020 even though he had two years of tenure left and was on track to become the next chief election commissioner (CEC) in April 2021, following the retirement of the then CEC Sunil Arora. It also emerged later that he was selected as a potential candidate for surveillance by Pegasus just weeks after his dissent at the Election Commission, according to leaked records of phone numbers.
