Editor's Pick: Electoral bonds to continue

(The Editor's Pick is a new newsletter from The Hindu that provides a snapshot of the most important stories from today's edition of our newspaper, along with a note from our top editors on why we chose to give prominence to these stories.)

The Supreme Court on Friday refused to stay the sale of electoral bonds before Assembly elections in four States and one Union Territory. The judgment said the scheme began in 2018 and continued in 2019 and 2020 without any impediments and that the court found no reason to stall the sale of electoral bonds now. The judgment came on an urgent application moved by the NGO, Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), represented by advocate Prashant Bhushan, to stay the sale scheduled between April 1 and 10, arguing that their sale could disproportionately increase funding to some political parties.

Electoral bonds are financial instruments that political parties can use to gather funding, with their buyer remaining anonymous and transactions allowed only through the State Bank of India. The scheme was introduced by the Modi government in the Finance Bill-2017 as an alternative to cash donations made to political parties. The government had reasoned that the scheme was an antidote to black money in politics as all donations would have to be routed through the banking system. ADR however, was one of the first orgnisations to move the Supreme Court against the scheme, arguing that the anonymity granted to political donors would be damaging. That was back in 2018, and until the urgent application moved just a few days ago to stop their sale ahead of the coming Assembly elections, the Supreme Court has not held a final hearing on ADR’s original petition as well as a host of others against the scheme.

During the hearing on the ADR application earlier in the week, the Election Commission of India registered its support for the scheme, stating that the alternative was to go back to the pre-existing situation of donations coming in by cash. The poll body’s stand was quite surprising as the NGO had consistently maintained that both the RBI and the ECI had voiced objections to the scheme. We may have to wait quite a while however, before these various positions can be scrutinised. The court’s observations in regard to this petition are technically not supposed to influence any ‘final hearings’. For the foreseeable future, the electoral bonds scheme looks set to continue. That marks this story out as our top pick of the day.

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