Today, the Supreme Court will rule on a number of petitions that contest the legality of the electoral bond program. On Thursday, the Supreme Court will rule on a number of petitions contesting the legality of the electoral bond program, which permits political parties to receive anonymous funding. On November 2 of last year, a five-judge panel led by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud had postponed making a decision in the case. Justice Sanjiv Khanna, BR Gavai, JB Pardiwala, and Manoj Misra were among the other judges.
Electoral bonds are legal tender that can be bought by individuals or business in India and function similarly to promissory notes or bearer bonds. The bonds are specially intended to be used as a means of funding political parties. The State Bank of India is the issuer of these bonds, which are offered for sale in multiples of Rs 1000, Rs10,000 and Rs 1 lakh, Rs 10 lakh and Rs 1 crore. Under this scheme, corporate an even foreign entities were able to make donations with 100% tax exemption, and both the recipient political parties and the bank kept ,the donor’s identities private.
How do donations get made?
The bonds can be bought to donate to a political party via a KYC-compliant account. The political parties will have a deadline to encash the donations after the funds are transferred.
Notably, an individual or business is able to purchase an unlimited quantity of electoral bonds.
To whom are electoral bonds available for funding?
Only political parties registered undersection 29A for Representation of the People Act, 1951 and those that received at least 1% of the total votes   cast in the most recently held elections to the Lok Sabha or a state legislative assembly are eligible to receive electoral bonds, per scheme’s provisions.
The scheme for electoral bonds and the case.
During the 2017 Budget Session, former finance minister Arun Jaitley made the initial announcement of the electoral bonds program. Afterwards, it received notice in January 2018 that money bills bringing changes to the Finance Act and the Representation of the People Act were a source of political funding. The Reserve Bank of India Act, the Companies Act, the Income Tax Act, and the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) were all amended by the Center in order to carry out the scheme. But the CPI Congress and a few NGOs filed a number of petitions in the Supreme Court challenging the constitutionality of the electoral bond program.
On October 31 of last year, the hearing into this matter got underway. The petitioners presented a number of arguments regarding the scheme, including its legality and potential threat to the nation. The petitioner claims that the plan encourages corruption, grants access to shell companies, and infringes on their right to information. Kapil Sibal. A senior advocate and member of the Rajya Sabha brought up the issue of a political party using donations for purposes other than elections.
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