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Responding to the SC verdict, advocate Shadan Farasat said, “Supreme Court has unanimously struck down the electoral bond amendments. The amendments that were the basis of the scheme have been struck down from different enactments like the Income Tax Act and others.””Supreme Court agreed with our submissions. The amendments which were introduced to ensure the anonymity of the scheme have been struck down and based on that, consequently, the scheme itself has been struck down,” he added.A five-judge bench of Chief Justice Inda DY Chandrachud, Justices Sanjiv Khanna, BR Gavai, JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra delivered a unanimous verdict earlier today, striking down the Electoral Bonds scheme as unconstitutional.The bench was ruling on a batch of pleas challenging the legal validity of the Central government’s Electoral Bonds Scheme, which allows for anonymous funding to political parties.At the start of the judgement, CJI Chandrachud said there are two opinions, one by himself and another by Justice Sanjiv Khanna and both arrive at the same conclusionThe bench said that the petitions raised two main issues; whether amendments are violative of the right to information under Article 19(1)(a) and whether unlimited corporate funding violated free and fair elections.The Supreme Court said that information about corporate contributors through Electoral Bonds must be disclosed as the donations by companies are purely for quid pro quo purposes.The court held that amendments in the Companies Act permitting unlimited political contributions by companies are arbitrary and unconstitutional.
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Prashant Bhushan on SC’s electoral bonds scheme verdict
