Login With Google
Plea to stay electoral bond scheme
Why in news?
- A plea has been filed by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) through advocate Prashant Bhushan in the Supreme Court seeking a stay on the implementation of the Electoral Bond Scheme, 2018,
More in news
- Reasons mentioned for stay on the Scheme:
(1) Opened the floodgates of unlimited corporate donations: to political parties and anonymous financing by Indian and foreign companies that can have serious repercussions on democracy.
(2) Amendments made to Finance Acts of 2017 and 2016 both passed as Money Bills, have facilitated unlimited political donations, legitimising electoral corruption on a huge scale, while at the same time ensuring complete non-transparency in political funding.
(3) Finance Act of 2017: introduced the use of electoral bonds which is exempt from disclosure under the Representation of the People Act, 1951, opening doors to unchecked, unknown funding to political parties.
(4) Cap removed: amendments also removed the existing cap of 7.5% of net profit in the last three years on campaign donations by companies and have legalised anonymous donations.
(5) Nature of Bearer Bonds: use of electoral bonds for political donations was a cause for concern because they were in the nature of bearer bonds and the identity of the donor was kept anonymous.
(6) Political parties are not required to disclose: the name of the person/entity donating to a party through electoral bonds.
(7) Unawared General Citizens: Since the bonds are bearer instruments and have to be physically given to the political parties for them to encash, parties will know who is donating to them... It is only the general citizens who will not know who is donating to which party.
(8) Opens up the possibility of companies being brought into existence by unscrupulous elements: primarily for routing funds to political parties.
- ADR said that it has already filed a PIL on the issue of corruption and subversion of democracy through illicit and foreign funding of political parties and lack of transparency in the accounts of all political parties.
Sources
The Hindu