Information on electoral bonds reveals what quid pro quo has happened so far: Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal

In a landmark verdict passed on Thursday, the Supreme Court struck down the Electoral Bonds Scheme that allowed unlimited, anonymous donations to political parties [Association for Democratic Reforms and Anr vs Union of India Cabinet Secretary and ors]..Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal, who appeared for the petitioners in the case, spoke to Bar & Bench's Debayan Roy on the verdict. Below are the excerpts..In his opinion, the top court has tried to restore a balance towards ensuring free and fair elections."You cannot have one political party aggrandize with enormous political power which results in imbalance in process of elections. At the heart of it is free and fair elections, which is fundamental to democracy...What they [BJP] have tried to aggrandise is contrary to the law and is a very serious issue."The veteran lawyer dispelled notions of an impending legislative nullifcation of the judgment, saying there was hardly any time left for the same."In any case, you cannot get rid of the fact is that it is illegal," he stressed..[Watch Video Here].Sibal contends that the verdict will go a long way in ensuring a level playing field in elections and will bring in more transparency in political funding."A voter can make informed decisions while the situation shall be such that odds are not skewed in one party's favour by receiving a lion's share of donations. The information about electoral bonds encashed so far would reveal what quid pro quo has happened so far," he argued..Sibal pointed out that with the judgment, the earlier law restricting corporate donations to a maximum of 10 per cent of a company's average profit of the last years would stand reinstated.Further, such disclosures would have to be done in accordance with the Representation of People Act, he explained. However, he points out that the problem of corporations not wishing to disclose who they are funding as they need favours from the government persists."If a quid pro quo is established with the donor and the government having given some advantage to donor, then it is a corrupt practice under the Representation of People Act. Therefore, corporations are wary of opening up information. But the fact of the matter is if you want to fund political parties and have free and fair elections, you cannot have electoral bonds."He suggests that a way out would be for corporate donations to be redistributed to parties proportionally in Parliament, rather than ruling parties getting the lion's share."You cannot have one system through which one political party ruling at the Centre is giving out goodies and aggrandises 50 per cent of the bonds. They have 5,000 to 6,000 crores in the process. They have set up their offices, given to the RSS and nothing to do with election. This is a bond which seeks to bond the donor with political parties.".Candidates aspiring to be parliamentarians and state assembly legislators cannot spend more than ₹95 lakh and ₹45 lakh, respectively, he points out.The Electoral Bonds Scheme was meant to circumvent this by allowing unfettered funding to political parties directly, as envisaged by former Union Finance Minister and Sibal's 'dear friend," the late Arun Jaitley."The scheme was devised by my dear friend, the late Arun Jaitley, for enriching the party [BJP] and now we have a situation where nobody can compete with them because their economic power is enormous; the Supreme Court has tried to restore that balance.".Follow our detailed coverage of Thursday's judgment, here and here.