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16 Feb 2024 : The Indian Express

Total 1 : A vital verdict

Introduction: Introducing the electoral bonds scheme in Union Budget 2017-18, the then finance minister, Arun Jaitley, had underlined that transparency in political funding is fundamental to the fairness of the election process. Since then, the electoral bonds have been criticized for their anonymity and opacity.

 

What are Electoral bonds (EBs)?

  • About
    • Electoral bonds are a financial instrument introduced by the Government of India in 2018 to facilitate anonymous political donations.
    • An electoral bond is a bearer instrument, like a promissory note, that is payable to the bearer on demand to donate their contributions to political parties.
  • Who is eligible to receive electoral bonds?
    • Only registered political parties are eligible to receive electoral bonds.
    • However, there are certain criteria that political parties must meet to be eligible to receive electoral bonds. These are:
      • Recognition: The political party must be registered under Section 29A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951.
      • Recent Election Performance: The party must have secured at least 1% of the votes polled in the most recent Lok Sabha or State Assembly election.
  • Available denominations
    • The Government of India has specified various denominations for electoral bonds, ranging from Rs. 1,000 to Rs. 1 crore.

 

Concerns about electoral bonds

  • Rather than helping clean up the shadowy world of poll finance, the electoral bonds scheme, had, over the years, invited criticism for increasing the system’s opacity.
  • Concerns over the scheme’s structure based on anonymous donations were voiced even by the Election Commission and the Reserve Bank of India.
  • The bonds allowed donors and parties to keep their association hidden from the public — the State Bank of India, a government-owned bank, and not an independent institution like the RBI, could track the donations.

 

The Supreme Court’s decision

  • The Supreme Court’s decision to strike down the changes in the law introduced to create electoral bonds is, therefore, enormously welcome, especially because it is anchored in the citizen’s right to know.
  • A five-judge bench headed by Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud ruled that the donor secrecy provision is “unconstitutional” and “arbitrary and violative of Article 14”.
  • CJI Chandrachud set the tone for the verdict by stressing that, “information about funding of political parties is essential for the effective exercise of the choice of voting.”
  • In the name of informational privacy, electoral bonds restrict the Right to Information to an unacceptable extent, the bench held unanimously.

 

The unequal distribution of election funds via electoral bonds

  • Studies by the Association for Democratic Reforms show that the BJP garnered the lion’s share of the bonds issued in the first tranche.
  • Analysis of declaration data shows that in the six years since the scheme was introduced, around 55 per cent of the funds extended through the bonds have gone to the BJP — Congress came a distant second with less than 10 per cent.
  • A report in this paper in November 2019 revealed the lopsided nature of this financing system — electoral bonds with denominations of Rs 1 crore accounted for more than 91 per cent of the Rs 5,896 crore raised in the first 11 phases of the sale of bonds.
  • All this lent credence to allegations of corruption and cronyism, and perceptions of an uneven playing field.
  • The government maintained that donor anonymity was necessary to shield contributors from potential retribution.
  • But as the five-judge bench pointed out, “at a primary level, political contributions… enhance access to legislators. This access also translates to influence over policy making. There is also a legitimate possibility that financial contributions to a political party would lead to a quid pro quo arrangement because of the close nexus between money and politics.”
  • The court has also pointed out that the ability of a company to influence the electoral process through political contributions is much higher when compared to that of an individual — both in terms of the quantum of money contributed, and the purpose of such contributions.

 

Conclusion: Attempts to make political funding more transparent must continue. As the SC has said, “There are means other than electoral bonds to achieve that purpose”. The government must be guided by the principles of transparency and accountability as it gives the issue a deeper look. That’s the central message of the SC’s landmark verdict.

Total 2 : Re-energising RTI

Introduction: The historic decision by the Supreme Court (SC) declaring the Electoral Bonds (EB) scheme unconstitutional has given a big boost to the flagging Right to Information Act.

 

Supreme Court’s emphasis on Right to Information

  • The SC weighed in in its favour under Article 19 (1) (a) of the Constitution as against informational privacy in the EB case.
  • The Solicitor General (SG) arguing before the Court had stated that citizens had no right to donor or recipient identities; the finance minister had opined that political retribution was also a cause for denial of information.
  • Earlier, a Central Information Commissioner (CIC) put the RTI Act on its head by giving a decision that information disclosure on EBs was not in the public interest.
  • Such judgments, while reflecting poorly on their quality, also hinted at the opacity of the regime.
  • It is in this context that the SC judgment is truly a landmark one.
  • The SC averred that the voters’ right is breached by the anonymity clause and that information on political parties is essential.
  • Poll bond, in fact, is violative of fundamental rights and infringement of RTI is not justified for curbing black money.
  • The two goals of the RTI Act — transparency and accountability — were clearly on the judges’ minds while delivering this unanimous judgment.

 

The Status of Information Commissions in India

  • The year 2023 ended on a somber note for the Right to Information Act.
  • Vacancies in Information Commissions, mounting pendency, delayed hearing of second appeals, perceptible opacity and the casual approach of officers in dealing with RTI queries were pointers of difficult days ahead.
  • Three lakh twenty-one thousand appeals were pending before the various Commissions as of June 30, 2023.
  • Satark Nagrik Sangathan in its recent study of State Information Commissions’ performances found that four out of 29 are defunct and at least three are still headless.
  • In 10 commissions, the waiting time for hearing after filing an appeal is over a year.
  • Nineteen of the 29 Commissions have not cared to file their annual report, mandatory under the Act.
  • The CIC itself boasts of only three commissioners with eight vacant posts.
  • At this rate, there is hardly any hope of clearing backlogs.

 

The CIC's role in cleaning political funding

  • The CIC faced its first major test after delivering a landmark judgment on June 3, 2013, bringing political parties under the ambit of the RTI Act.
  • The ruling party and the Opposition baulked at its audacity.
  • Advised by their legal luminaries, they neither complied nor appealed against the decision.
  • The decision left a debilitating impact on the CIC.
  • It could have at best fined the political party spokesman or an official Rs 25,000 and do little else to ensure compliance of its orders.
  • It also signalled the beginning of a distrust between the Commission and the government.
  • Today, its commissioners are shorn of their former status and fixity of tenures.

 

The lacunas in RTI Act

  • While issues such as these and the PM Care Fund are of relatively recent era, even information of the preceding 20 years are held back on security grounds.
  • The Henderson Papers are doomed to the archives and the correspondence between Roy Bucher, the second Army commander-in-chief and PM Nehru, resting in Nehru Memorial Library, is denied access to under the RTI Act because the Ministry of External Affairs feels that foreign relations would be impacted.
  • Revelations of McNamara and Nixon’s observations on Indira Gandhi have not impacted our relations with the US nor the trenchant and acerbic comments of Churchill on India.

 

Benefits of declassifying the information

  • Things can still change around if the government displays its will to resurrect the RTI regime.
  • Let a committee under the Minister of Personnel, comprising information commissioners, officials and even civil society members, examine issues and take appropriate measures.
  • The Prime Minister has often stressed on transparency and accountability and that is exactly what the Preamble of the RTI Act embodies.
  • The RTI Act was once called sunshine legislation, rated as one of the best in the world and even emulated by a few nations.

 

Conclusion: Today, the time has come when India boasting of a rising economy and moral and political clout should energize the RTI regime, which would only add heft to its position in the comity of nations. Let us hope that the SC judgment acts as a catalyst in strengthening the RTI Act and restoring it to its past glory.