The Centre is examining the Supreme Court order to strike down the 2018 electoral bond scheme of political funding and will decide whether it will challenge the ruling, Union law minister Arjun Ram Meghwal said on Friday.
“We are examining it,” Meghwal told HT when asked if the government is going to challenge the top court’s verdict that came ahead of the Lok Sabha elections expected to take place in April or May this year.
On Thursday, the Supreme Court struck down the electoral bond scheme, declaring it to be “unconstitutional” because it completely anonymised contributions made to political parties, and added that restricting black money or illegal election financing — some of the articulated objectives of the scheme — did not justify violating voters’ right to information in a disproportionate manner.
Ordering full disclosure of donors and recipients of electoral bonds issued since April 2019 on the website of the Election Commission of India (ECI) by March 13, a five-judge Constitution bench, headed by Chief Justice of India Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud, ruled that amendments made in the Representation of the People Act, Income Tax Act, and Companies Act through the 2017 Finance Act violated the constitutional right of the electors to access information on the funding of political parties “which is necessary to identify corruption and quid pro quo transactions and governance information”.
According to people familiar with the matter, the government can either accept the verdict, take the ordinance route or seek a review of the judgment.
{{/usCountry}}According to people familiar with the matter, the government can either accept the verdict, take the ordinance route or seek a review of the judgment.
{{/usCountry}}“The only avenue available is a review which is decided in chambers and not in open court,” senior advocate Kapil Sibal, who appeared for the petitioners challenging the electoral bond scheme, said.
“Can they bring an ordinance contrary to the Supreme Court judgment? They can’t. Can they bring an ordinance by changing the law, in the sense, by thinking of another electoral bonds scheme? The answer is yes. That will be the subject matter of another challenge, if at all it can be challenged. Anybody can bring any ordinance which is consistent with the Constitution… Can they bring an ordinance in a way, set at nought, which has been declared by the Supreme Court? The answer to that is no. ... Once there is a declaration that this particular scheme is unconstitutional, you can’t declare it as constitutional by an ordinance,” he added.