Electoral bonds plea No concrete material for court-monitored probe says Delhi HC

New Delhi, Mar 19 (PTI) The Delhi High Court on Wednesday said there was no concrete material in the allegations raised in a plea for a court-monitored investigation into the alleged quid pro quo and corruption in donations made through electoral bonds to various political parties.
     A bench of Chief Justice D K Upadhyaya and Justice Tushar Rao Gedela questioned the petitioner for placing reliance on media reports on electoral bonds and asked "How far can they be reliable?"
     It went on to add, "In this petition, what is the material?... On what basis? The newspaper reports, that's all."
     Finding "no concrete material" supporting the allegations in the plea, the court noted the petitioner couldn't seek a roving inquiry without material.
     "We proceed to give them direction for investigation, preliminary inquiry, lodging of criminal complaint, etc., a prosecution only once we are prima facie satisfied. There is no material except that there is a list of donors, that's all," it added.
     The CBI counsel said the allegations in the plea were vague and the petitioner had to first show how his petition was maintainable.
     Petitioner Sudip Narayan Tamankar, who claims to be an activist, sought a direction for the court-monitored investigation by the CBI into his April 18, 2024, complaint pursuant to a Supreme Court court passed on August 2 last year.
     Tamankar, in his plea, said the electoral bond scheme created an opaque electoral funding veil for quid pro quo arrangements between corporate entities and the political parties.
     A five-judge Constitution bench of the Supreme Court on February 15, 2024, scrapped the electoral bonds scheme of anonymous political funding introduced by the BJP government.
     Following the top court's judgement, the State Bank of India, the authorised financial institution under the scheme, shared the data with the EC, which made it public subsequently.
     The electoral bonds scheme notified by the government on January 2, 2018, was pitched as an alternative to cash donations made to political parties as part of its efforts to bring in transparency in political funding.
     Tamankar previously filed a petition before the Supreme Court with a similar prayer.
     The top court had rejected a batch of pleas seeking a court-monitored investigation into the electoral bonds scheme while observing it couldn't order a roving inquiry.

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)