Dr Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud, CJI A. Background ................................................................................................... 4 i.

Corporate Contributions ........................................................................... 5 ii.

Curbing black money .............................................................................. 10 iii. Transparency ........................................................................................... 11 iv. Objections of RBI and ECI to the Electoral Bond Scheme .................. 13 v.

Electoral Bond Scheme .......................................................................... 18 B. Issues ........................................................................................................... 23 C. Submissions ................................................................................................ 24 i.

Submissions of petitioners .................................................................... 24 ii.

Submissions of Union of India ............................................................... 36 D. The Scope of Judicial Review .................................................................... 40 E. The close association of politics and money ........................................... 44 F.

The challenge to non-disclosure of information on electoral financing 50 i.

Infringement of the right to information of the voter ........................... 51 a.

The scope of Article 19(1)(a): tracing the right to information ................ 51 b.

Right to information of a voter: exploring the judgments in ADR and PUCL 55 c.

The focal point of the electoral process: candidate or political party ...... 64 d.

The essentiality of information about political funding for the effective exercise of the choice of voting ..................................................................... 73 ii.

Whether the infringement of the right to information of the voter is justified ............................................................................................................ 78 a.

Curbing Black money ............................................................................. 80 b.

Donor Privacy ........................................................................................ 95 I.

Informational privacy of financial contributions to political parties ...... 96 II.

Privacy vis-à-vis political party .......................................................... 103 III. Balancing the right to information and the right to informational privacy 103 a) Judicial Approach towards balancing fundamental rights: establishing the double proportionality standard ...................................................... 103 b) Validity of the Electoral Bond Scheme, Section 11 of the Finance Act and Section 137 of the Finance Act ..................................................... 113 c.

Validity of Section 154 of the Finance Act amending Section 182(3) to the Companies Act ............................................................................................ 120 G. Challenge to unlimited corporate funding .............................................. 124 i.

The application of the principle of non-arbitrariness ........................ 127 a.

Arbitrariness as a facet of Article 14 ..................................................... 127 b.

Beyond Shayara Bano: entrenching manifest arbitrariness in Indian jurisprudence .............................................................................................. 131 ii.

Validity of Section 154 of the Finance Act 2017 omitting the first proviso to Section 182 of the Companies Act ......................................................... 140 H. Conclusion and Directions ...................................................................... 149 PART A

1. The petitioners have instituted proceedings under Article 32 of the Constitution challenging the constitutional validity of the Electoral