Supreme Court rejects review plea against decision on Rs 16,518 crore received under electoral bond scheme

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has recently in it order rejected a petition seeking review of its earlier decision against the petitions for confiscating Rs 16,518 crore received by political parties under the 2018 electoral bond scheme.

The review plea was filed by Khem Singh Bhati challenging the top court's decision of August 2, 2024.

"We don't find any merit in the review plea. Accordingly, we dismiss it," the three-judge bench of the apex court, led by Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, said.

The Supreme Court, in its previous order on August 2, 2024, rejected a petition, including one filed by Bhati seeking a court-monitored probe into the electoral bonds scheme (EBS) and observed it couldn't order a roving inquiry. Bhati's review plea now requests a recall of that order and a fresh hearing.

The Supreme Court in October last year dismissed a petition seeking a review of the Constitution Bench's February 15 judgement which struck down the Electoral Bonds scheme as unconstitutional and directed banks to stop issuing these bonds immediately.

"The Union has been unable to establish the measure adopted in clause 7(4)(1) of the electoral scheme is the least restrictive measure," a five-judge bench of the top court, headed by the then CJI D Y Chandrachud, said in the order.

The Top Court had also said that the Amendments to Income Tax Act provision and Section 29C of the Representation of Peoples (RP) Act are declared to be ultra vires.

The former CJI Chandrachud had said earlier that the Amendment to the Companies Act (allowing blanket corporate political funding) is unconstitutional. The electoral bonds scheme was challenged by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), the Communist Party of India (Marxist), Congress leader Jaya Thakur, and Spandan Biswal.

An electoral bond is an instrument in the nature of a promissory note which can be purchased by any individual, company, firm or association of persons provided the person or body is a citizen of India or incorporated or established in India.

Electoral bonds were introduced through the 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.