Electoral Bonds Case Hearing : Live Updates From Supreme Court [Day 3]

Bhushan: Right of privacy cannot be extended to companies...even if it is an individual's right, can individuals claim right to privacy which overrides the right to information? Privacy argument cannot be used to say that it overrides the citizens' right of information

Bhushan: It promotes corruption. It allows any company to give anonymous kickbacks, it legalises anonymous kickbacks through parties in power. There is considerable evidence to show that almost all the Electoral Bonds have gone to ruling parties

CJI: On a constitutional level, this argument will not wash. The fact that they have been unable to or they did not dry all cash sources - is not a ground to challenge the validity of the scheme.

Bhushan: It's not that black money cannot come in through EBs, though it will come into through banking channels.

Bhushan: Even the RBI, when it dealt with EBs said, that if your object is to make political funding go through banking channels - there are existing instruments of cheques, drafts etc. Why are you introducing an anonymous channel?

Bhushan: You can still give cash. There is no bar made on cash.

CJI: How do you impose a bar on cash? It is a third economy. Not only would that be illegal but also this is a third economy.

Bhushan: It defeats a constitutional right of citizens to know who is funding these political parties. That's a fundamental right recognised under Art 19(1)(a).

CJI: Whether it reduces black money or not to my mind is irrelevant to the validity of the scheme. The scheme may be wholly unsuccessful but it may be a wholly valid scheme.

CJI: In the earlier regime, it was purely cash based. A cash based scheme proceeds on anonymity. Acc to you, they've continued anonymity. But there is one change, the EBs have brought whatever is contributed in form of accounted transactions within normal banking channels.

Bhushan: If the object was to choke out cash donations, that hasn't been met with.

CJI: That's not the object. The object was to add some element of transperancy. That's what Mr Jaitley says. That this would enhance transperancy...