SC directs parties to give details of donations received via electoral bond, informs Prashant Bhushan

Apr 12, 2019

New Delhi, Apr 12 (ANI): The Supreme Court of India delivered its verdict on a plea challenging the validity of electoral bonds. Senior Advocate Prashant Bhushan addressed mediapersons after the verdict. He said, “Today the Supreme Court has passed an interim order on the electoral bond, holding that the parties, who have received electoral bonds till now and in future will have to provide complete information about the donors to the Election Commission. Therefore, the anonymity of the donor will atleast be gone to the Election Commission. In this case, almost all the electoral bonds of about Rs 2000 crore have been received by only one party i.e., Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). So, now the BJP has to disclose, who gave them bond of such big amount. Now mystery will open up as to who are these companies and what kind of benefits have these companies received at the hands of BJP government. So, it is an important step towards transparency.” The senior lawyer further said, “The second direction is that the government had allowed electoral bonds to continue for 55 days before the election, whereas the maximum period allowed is 50 days, so SC has said to reduce the 5 days.”