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A view of the Supreme Court (SC) of India, in New Delhi, Friday, July 12, 2024. SC on Friday granted interim bail to Kejriwal in a money laundering case linked to the alleged excise policy scam. (Photo: PTI)
The Supreme Court on Monday will hear a batch of public interest litigation (PILs) seeking a court-monitored investigation into the controversial electoral bonds scheme, which was scrapped by the top court in February.
A top court bench led by Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud on Friday took the note of the submissions made by senior lawyer Prashant Bhushan and listed the PILs for July 22.
The petitioners in this case are two NGOs – Common Cause and the Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL).
In addition to these, another similar plea will also be taken up together on July 22.
The PIL by the two NGOs alleges ‘quid pro quo’ between political parties, corporations, and investigative agencies. This means that they suspect an arranged exchange of services or favours between the involved parties.
The PILs have labelled the scheme as ‘scam’ and demanded a probe into the source of funding of the “shell companies and loss-making companies which made donations to various political parties”.
It also sought direction to the authorities to recover the donated money by the involved companies where “these are found to be proceeds of crime”.
What is the electoral bonds scheme case?
On February 15, the apex court delivered unanimous judgement striking the scheme down, noting that it was “unconstitutional”.
The scheme was first introduced in 2017 in the Finance Bill by the then Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.
First Published: Jul 19 2024 | 11:53 AM IST
