The Supreme Court on Friday refused to put a stay on the validity of the electoral bonds scheme introduced by the Narendra Modi government. In its interim order on Friday, the Supreme Court said that the electoral bonds scheme would continue to be in place. However, the three-member bench, comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices Deepak Gupta and Sanjiv Khanna, asked all parties to submit details of electoral bonds.
The bench directed all political parties to submit the details of donations received through electoral bonds till May 15 to the Election Commission by May 31. The scheme has come under lens after 95 per cent of the electoral bonds sold so far have been in favour of the BJP.
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The Supreme Court said it would fix the date for the final hearing in the case soon.
The Supreme Court had conducted hearings on the matter on Thursday following a plea by an NGO, Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR). ADR had challenged the validity of electoral bonds in the Supreme Court and demanded it be stayed or modified to ensure name of donors to political parties be made known for the sake of transparency.
During the hearings on Thursday, the Supreme Court bench had observed if the names of purchasers of electoral bonds were not known, then the efforts of the government to curtail black money in electioneering “would be futile”. Arguing for the Modi government, Advocate General K.K. Venugopal had declared the purpose of electoral bonds was to eliminate use of black money in elections and had asked the Supreme Court not to interfere with the scheme at this stage.
