Supreme Court's comment regarding the electoral bond scheme, said- there is a provision of selective anonymity and confidentiality in it

The Supreme Court on Wednesday said the problem with the electoral bond scheme is that it has provisions for "selective anonymity" and "selective secrecy" as the details are available with the State Bank of India (SBI) and law enforcement agencies can also access them. Are.

A five-judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice (CJI) DY Chandrachud told Solicitor General (SG) Tushar Mehta, who was arguing on behalf of the Centre, that the problem with the scheme would be if it does not provide a level playing field to political parties and if It will be opaque.

Hearing arguments on petitions challenging the validity of the electoral bond scheme, the apex court said that the objective of the scheme may be entirely laudable, but there should be a provision for full disclosure in order to attempt to bring legitimate money into the electoral process.

The bench also includes Justice Sanjiv Khanna, Justice BR Gavai, Justice JB Pardiwala, and Justice Manoj Mishra. It is noteworthy that under the scheme, electoral bonds can be issued or purchased from some authorized branches of SBI. During the hearing, the Chief Justice said, "Your argument that if you cancel this scheme, you will go back to the pre-existing situation. This cannot be tenable because we do not want the government to provide a transparent scheme or such We are not stopping ourselves from bringing a plan in which equal opportunities are available."

During the day-long hearing, the bench also asked the Election Commission about the average total amount of funds required for each general election or assembly election and the amount collected and utilized through these bonds. The hearing will continue on Thursday also.