In a landmark judgment on February 15, 2024, a five-judge Bench of the Supreme Court of India declared the electoral bond scheme unconstitutional. This was a scheme which opened the floodgates of unlimited anonymous funding of political parties and consolidated the role of big money in the Indian political system.
Directive and response
To give “logical and complete effect” to its ruling, the top court put a stop to the issuance of electoral bonds, and gave the State Bank of India, or the SBI (the bank that was authorised to issue and encash the bonds), 21 days to disclose two sets of information to the Election Commission of India (ECI) to put up on its website. The first was details of the electoral bonds purchased since April 12, 2019, which would “include the date of purchase of each Electoral Bond, the name of the purchaser of the bond and the denomination of the Electoral Bond purchased”. The second was on details of electoral bonds redeemed by political parties for the same time frame. The Court ruled: “SBI must disclose details of each Electoral Bond encashed by political parties which shall include the date of encashment and the denomination of the Electoral Bond”.
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