[BREAKING] Supreme Court to pronounce order tomorrow on stay of Electoral Bonds

The Supreme Court will pronounce its order on Friday in the plea seeking stay on issuance of Electoral Bonds. .The order will be pronounced by a Bench of Chief Justice of India, SA Bobde and Justices AS Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian on a plea by NGO Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) seeking an interim direction to bar the sale of Electoral Bonds in view of the upcoming State Assembly elections in West Bengal, Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Union Territory of Puducherry..Through its application filed on March 9 this year, ADR had sought urgent listing of its 2017 writ petition challenging the Electoral Bonds scheme.The application by the NGO raised serious apprehensions that any further sale of Electoral Bonds before the upcoming State Assembly elections in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Assam, "would further increase illegal and illicit funding of political parties through shell companies.""The petitioner seeks that no further opening of window for the sale of EBs be allowed during the pendency of the instant writ petition," the application stated.ADR also informed the top court that the case was last heard in January 2020 and even after a similar application was filed on December 27, 2020 seeking urgent hearing of the case, the matter was not listed.Electoral bonds were introduced through Finance Act 2017, which in turn amended three other statutes - the RBI Act, the Income Tax Act and the Representation of People Act - for enabling introduction of such bonds.The Finance Act, 2017 introduced a system of electoral bonds to be issued by any scheduled bank for the purpose of electoral funding..The Finance Act was passed as a money bill, which meant that it did not require the assent of Rajya Sabha. This, the petitioner submitted in the 2017 petition, was done in order to bypass the Rajya Sabha, where the ruling BJP government does not have a majority.The petitioners also submitted that the consequence of the amendments was that annual contribution reports of political parties to be furnished to the Election Commission of India need not mention names and addresses of those contributing by way of electoral bonds, thereby killing transparency in political funding.The removal of the cap on donations by the amendment to the Companies Act, 2013 and the amendments made in Section 236 of the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, 2010 were also challenged as opening the avenues of foreign contribution to Indian political parties..During the hearing of the matter on Wednesday, the Central government through Attorney General KK Venugopal and Solicitor General Tushar Mehta had assured the Court that funds received through Electoral Bonds were white money that could only be issued through cheque and demand draft, and for which Know Your Customer (KYC) norms had to be followed..[Breaking] Supreme Court asks Central Govt to look into potential misuse of Electoral bonds funds, reserves order on stay application.The Bench had, however, expressed serious reservations on such funds being misused by terrorist elements. ."This angle of misuse of funds for illegal purposes for purposes of terrorism we would like you as a government to look into. It is not to suggest that political parties have violence on their agenda," the Court told the Centre's top law officers. .On the other hand, advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for petitioner NGO, had drawn the attention of the Court to a letter written by the Governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in which it was stated that the Electoral Bond scheme was fraught with risk and would impact India's financial system.."RBI said there may be use of these electoral bonds to fund shell companies etc. RBI said this will put them at reputational risk. Here, bribing has been made through government channels. Apart from the bank, no one will know who is the donor, not even ECI," he added.Bhushan went on to state that the scheme can be used for cross-border counterfeiting..Interestingly, the Election Commission which had opposed the scheme on affidavit earlier had said on Wednesday that it was not opposing the issuance of electoral bonds during April when the State Assembly elections are scheduled. .Follow Bar and Bench channel on WhatsAppDownload the Bar and Bench Mobile app for instant access to the latest legal news.