New Delhi: The non-profit organization Common Cause and Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL) have jointly moved a petition in the Supreme Court, demanding a probe by a special investigation team (SIT) under judicial supervision into an alleged scam in electoral financing using electoral bonds (EBs), which was scrapped by the top court on February 15 because the scheme completely anonymized political donations.
The petition claimed that the EB data released last month on the orders of the Supreme Court shows that the bulk of these were given as “quid pro quo” arrangements by corporates to political parties either for fiscal gains or for avoiding actions by central agencies, including the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Enforcement Directorate (ED) and Income Tax department.
Additionally, EBs were purchased for donation to political parties to trigger some policy and regulatory changes to favor certain business firms, the NGO alleged. “Though these apparent pay-offs amount to several thousand crores, they appear to have influenced contracts worth lakhs of crores and regulatory inaction by agencies worth thousands of crores and also appear to have allowed substandard or dangerous drugs to be sold in the market, endangering the lives of millions of people in the country. That is why the electoral bonds scam has been called by many astute observers as the largest scam in India so far, and perhaps in the world,” stated the petition filed through advocate Prashant Bhushan on April 18.
Citing substantial irregularities and potential violations of the Companies Act, the plea contends that at least 20 companies, some newly incorporated, have contributed over ₹100 crore to political parties within three years of their establishment, which it said is prohibited under Section 182(1) of the Companies Act.
Introduced in 2018, EBs were available for purchase at any SBI branch in multiples of ₹1,000, ₹10,000, ₹1 lakh, ₹10 lakh and ₹1 crore and could be bought through a KYC-compliant account.
