Electoral Bonds: NGOs seek listing of PIL in SC; demand court-monitored SIT probe into donors

Supreme Court. File Pic

Two NGOs on Tuesday urged the Supreme Court to consider listing their public interest litigation (PIL), reported PTI. The PIL seeks a court-monitored probe by a special investigation team into alleged instances of "apparent quid pro quo" involving political parties, corporate entities and officials of investigative agencies in the electoral bonds scheme.

The two judge bench comprising Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta took note of the submissions of lawyer Prashant Bhushan, appearing for NGOs 'Common Cause' and the Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL), that the plea needed to be listed for hearing at the earliest.

"The CJI's office is seized of it. It will be listed," Justice Khanna told Bhushan.

Earlier this year, a five-judge Constitution bench had on February 15 scrapped the electoral bonds scheme of anonymous political funding introduced by the BJP government in 2018.

Terming it a "scam", the plea filed by the NGOs has sought a direction to the authorities to investigate the source of funding of "shell companies and loss-making companies" which made donations to various political parties, as has been disclosed by the data released by the EC.

The petition has also sought a direction to the authorities to recover the money donated by companies as part of "quid pro quo arrangements where these are found to be proceeds of crime."

Future Gaming and Hotels Services, Megha Engineering and infrastructure, Vedanta Ltd, Qwik Supply Chain, Keventers Food Park were among the top 10 donors as per the list of donors released by the EC.

Election Commission released electoral bonds data in March

Following a Supreme Court directive, the State Bank of India had shared the data with the Election Commission on March 12.

According to the data uploaded by the EC, the buyers of electoral bonds include Grasim Industries, Megha Engineering, Piramal Enterprises, Torrent Power, Bharti Airtel, DLF Commercial Developers, Vedanta Ltd., Apollo Tyres, Lakshmi Mittal, Edelweiss, PVR, Keventer, Sula Wine, Welspun, and Sun Pharma.
The parties that redeemed electoral bonds include the BJP, Congress, AIADMK, BRS, Shiv Sena, TDP, YSR Congress, DMK, JDS, NCP, Trinamool Congress, JDU, RJD, AAP, and the Samajwadi Party, according to the data.

In a landmark verdict delivered on February 15, a five-judge Constitution bench had scrapped the Centre's electoral bonds scheme that allowed anonymous political funding, calling it "unconstitutional" and ordered disclosure by the EC of donors, the amount donated by them and the recipients.