The court ruled that the Electoral Bond Scheme is unconstitutional, emphasizing the need to exhaust normal legal remedies before invoking Article 32 for judicial intervention.

ORDER :

1. A batch of four petitions has been instituted before this Court invoking its jurisdiction under Article 32 of the Constitution.

2. In Association for Democratic Reforms & Anr Vs. Union of India & Ors, (2024) 2 SCR 420 : 2024 INSC 113, a Constitution Bench of this Court struck down the Electoral Bond Scheme and provisions in cognate legislation including those Representation of the People Act 1951, the Companies Act 2017 and the Income Tax Act, 1961 as being ultra vires and unconstitutional. The conclusions of this Court were in the following terms:

“216. In view of the discussion above, the following are our conclusions:

a. The Electoral Bond Scheme, the proviso to Section 29C(1) of the Representation of the People Act 1951 (as amended by Section 137 of Finance Act 2017), Section 182(3) of the Companies Act (as amended by Section 154 of the Finance Act 2017), and Section 13A(b) (as amended by Section 11 of Finance Act 2017) are violative of Article 19(1)(a) and unconstitutional; and

b. The deletion of the proviso to Section 182(1) of the Companies Act permitting unlimited corporate contributions to political parties is arbitrary and violative of Article 14.”

3. Consequential to the above conclusions, the directions that were issued by the Constitution Bench read thus :

“219. In view of our discussion above, the following directions are issued:

a. The issuing bank shall herewith stop the issuance of Electoral Bonds;

b. SBI shall submit details of the Electoral Bonds purchased since the interim order of this Court dated 12 April 2019 till date to the ECI. The details shall include the date of purchase of each Electoral Bond, the name of the purchaser of the bond and the denomination of the Electoral Bond purchased;

c. SBI shall submit the details of political parties which have received contributions through Electoral Bonds since the interim order of this Court dated 12 April 2019 till date to the ECI. SBI must disclose details of each Electoral Bond encashed by political parties which shall include the date of encashment and the denomination of the Electoral Bond;

d. SBI shall submit the above information to the ECI within three weeks from the date of this judgment, that is, by 6 March 2024;

e. The ECI shall publish the information shared by the SBI on its official website within one week of the receipt of the information, that is, by 13 March 2024; and

f. Electoral Bonds which are within the validity period of fifteen days but that which have not been encashed by the political party yet shall be returned by the political party or the purchaser depending on who is in possession of the bond to the issuing bank. The issuing bank, upon the return of the valid bond, shall refund the amount to the purchaser’s account.”

4. Thereafter, orders were passed by this Court on 11 March 2024 and 18 March 2024 to give effect to the directions for disclosure.

5. The four petitions, invoking the jurisdiction under Article 32 of the Constitution, have been instituted by (i) Common Cause and Centre for Public Interest Litigation; (ii) Jai Prakash Sharma, a petitioner-in-person; (iii) Sudip Narayan Tamankar; and (iv) Khem Singh Bhati.

6. The reliefs which have been sought in these petitions are briefly summarised below :

(i) Writ Petition (Civil) No 266 of 2024

(a) A court monitored investigation by a Special Investigating Team (SIT) into the quid pro quo arrangements between public servants, political parties, company official and officials of the investigative agencies, as disclosed by the electoral bond data (Prayer (a));

(b) A direction to the authorities to investigate the source of funding of shell companies/loss-making companies to various political parties (Prayer (b));

(c) A direction to the authorities to recover the amounts from political parties where they are found to be proceeds of crime (Prayer (c)); and

(d) A direction for an investigation into the violation of Section 182(1) of the Companies Act 2013 by companies which donated through elec