A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi said that it will hear the pleas challenging the validity of the Centre’s decision on the issuing of electoral bonds opposing the Election Commission‘s concern of foreign influence, on April 5.
To ensure the accountability and transparency of the electoral bonds, the Center on Wednesday filed an affidavit before the Supreme court saying electoral bonds is a positive step in the right direction towards conducting free and fair elections. It opposed the concerns raised by the EC on issuing Electoral Bonds saying that these bonds were introduced in order to deal with the menace and malign of the corruption in the elections.
The previous week the poll panel had filed an affidavit saying that it had informed the Ministry of Law and justice that changes in the law allowing the electoral bonds would have serious repercussions on the transparency of funding to the political parties at the time of elections also in the cash-for-vote.
According to the Election commission, any donation received by a political party has been taken out from the source of reporting, and then t would be difficult to ascertain of the political parties received donations from the government of any foreign sources.
The center, however, opposed the EC’s concern that the electoral bonds will influence the funding of foreign companies to the Indian parties as implications “without any legal or factual merit.”
The Center claimed that under the use of the previous electoral system huge amounts of political donations were being made in cash by the individuals and political parties and corporates using illicit means of funding. In spite of the best efforts of the Election Commission and the government, Criminal money was being pumped in for financing the elections. The system is wholly opaque and does not disclose the identity of the receiver of the lender keeping it as absolute anonymous.
“Under the present electoral system, the electoral binds can be issued only by the State Bank Of India. The bank is an authorized bank will ensure that these bonds are received only by means of a demand draft, cheque or through the Electronic clearance system or direct debit to the buyers account and hence no black money can be used for the purchase of these electoral bonds,” the Center said in its affidavit.