The Supreme Court on Saturday named the five judges on the Constitution Bench scheduled to hear petitions challenging the legality of the electoral bonds scheme, which facilitates anonymous donations to political parties, from October 31.
Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud would head the Bench with Justices Sanjiv Khanna, B.R. Gavai, J.B. Pardiwala and Manoj Misra serving as Associate Judges.
The Chief Justice had made a brief mention orally on October 16 about the reference of the case to a Constitution Bench, which would convene after the Dasara holidays on October 31.
The case has been pending in the apex court for over eight years now.
Advocate Prashant Bhushan, for petitioner NGO Association for Democratic Reforms, had on October 10 pressed the court to hear and decide the electoral bonds issue before the General Elections in 2024.
The court has agreed to the petitioners’ plea urging to focus primarily on two issues concerning electoral bonds scheme, that is, the legalisation of anonymous donations to political parties and the violation of citizens’ right to information about the funding of political parties, promoting corruption. The two issues concern violation of Articles 19, 14 and 21 of the Constitution.
Money Bill
The five-judge Bench may not wade into the legal question concerning the passage of the electoral bonds scheme as a Money Bill. It may, instead, wait for a seven-judge Bench to deliver an authoritative pronouncement on “when a Bill could be designated a Money Bill”.
The electoral bonds scheme was passed as a Money Bill, circumventing the Rajya Sabha.
Advocate Shadan Farasat, for a petitioner, said the scheme had completely “anonymised” and “sanitised” political donations, giving scant information to the public.
He said even amendments were introduced in the Companies Act by which a company could throw a cloak of anonymity to its donations to political parties via purchase of electoral bonds.
Mr. Bhushan had argued that amendments made via Finance Acts of 2016 and 2017, both passed as Money Bills, have through the electoral bonds scheme, “opened the floodgates to unlimited political donations.”
