With just days left for the announcement of Parliament elections, the Supreme Court has called ‘a spade a spade’ by declaring that the electoral bonds scheme is unconstitutional. The court has also ruled that the amendments to the companies act in this respect, like granting full tax exemption to such donations, were unconstitutional. It asked SBI, tasked with the issuing of these bonds, to halt this process. The five-member apex court bench led by Chief Justice of India Justice DY Chandrachud made it clear that this scheme violated the people’s right to freedom of information as anonymity was allowed in respect of companies making such payments to political parties. The bench also took the view that this scheme tended to benefit the party in power more than the other parties. Notably, the decisions on these had been taken by the Modi government in 2017 and implemented the next year, shortly before the 2019 polls.
A major factor that vitiates the election process in this country is money power. Today, parties across the political spectrum are known to be “buying” votes, at least selectively by targeting the poor voters to whom an offer of some currency notes for each vote makes all the difference. Both parties and candidates allegedly do this. This apart, more money at the disposal of a party or candidate for campaigning means an ‘undue advantage’ over the others. Worse, why anonymity to the companies getting involved in this scheme? It is also beyond one’s perception as to why tax exemption is allowed for such payments by companies. Fact of the matter is that the systems in matters of all donations are manipulated to a large extent by the political parties that run the nation by turns. This gives them the leeway for massive corruption. What is given to the party often goes into individual cash chests of leaders, irrespective of whether they contest elections or not.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi waxes eloquent on good governance, but he did precious little to change things for the better when it comes to flaws in the system and in checking corruption. Even actions that he took, as in the introduction of electoral bonds, through then finance minister Arun Jaitley, lacked teeth and failed to serve the stated purpose – namely to reduce the influence of black money during elections. To reform is to improve. A reform cannot be an exercise simply for the heck of it. Modi’s investigating agencies too are seen to be ineffective, going by the lack of solid results in many investigations. The Supreme Court deserves praise for its intervention and its action of crying a halt to this misconceived scheme. Kudos are due to Right to Information (RTI) activists and journalists that have pursued the electoral bonds issue to its logical end.
