Special Investigation Team headed by retired Supreme Court judge should be formed to uncover corruption in electoral bonds: Prashant Bhushan

While the limit on individual spend by a candidate for a Lok Sabha election is ₹75 lakhs, there is no such limit for a political party.  

After the apex court declared electoral bonds unconstitutional in February, activists are now demanding an independent investigation to further probe the matter, and have moved the Supreme Court in this regard.

Lawyer Prashant Bhushan, who appeared in the court on behalf of Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), told mediapersons in Bengaluru that a special investigation team, headed by a retired Supreme Court judge, should be formed to uncover the corruption. He further added that a petition has been filed in the Supreme Court seeking the same. 

“Under the Prevention of Corruption Act, there is a presumption that if your file is pending with a particular government and thereafter you give some money to them without any consideration, then it will be presumed a kickback... But apart from that presumption, we still need to find out the people in the companies, political parties and government who were involved in this conspiracy, and also which agencies were involved,” said Mr. Bhushan. 

Adding that the petition was filed a few days ago, he hoped that it will soon come up for hearing in the court. 

Bhushan noted that the size of the scam should not be judged by the figure of ₹16,500 crore, which is the money collected by issuing electoral bonds.  

“For every ₹1,000 crore of electoral bonds, contracts worth at least 100 times that have been given to the companies which bought those electoral bonds,” he said. 

Citing the example of Megha Engineering and Infrastructures Limited, he pointed out that after the company giving ₹140 crores of electoral bonds to the BJP in April, the next month it was awarded a ₹14,000 crore contract for a tunnel by the Maharashtra goverment controlled by the BJP.