Electoral bonds have been scrapped but not corporate funding

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₹1 crore and thus presumably bought by companies. Hence, the right at stake was a corporate donor’s to make political donations. The judgement will evoke mixed feelings in boardrooms.

On one hand, there may be relief owing to respite from any real or perceived pressure to make donations. On the other, existing donors will soon find their names in the public domain. These bonds were purchased under the cover of anonymity provisions, but the court has held that donors would have been aware of the pending case and that the scheme might be struck down.

The argument that corporations enjoy a right to privacy was always a hard sell, particularly in matters of political donations. Corporations enjoy certain fundamental rights under the Constitution, such as the right to equality, which is invoked every time a company challenges a tender before a high court. But a company is a statutory creation, and at a minimum, its shareholders are entitled to know how it spends its money.

Directors also have a broader obligation to the “community" under Section 166 of the Companies Act to the “community." In the case of political donations, those rights and obligations arguably extend to a larger class of stakeholders—voters. Corporations have been at the forefront of expanding the right to freedom of speech and expression. The Supreme Court has also protected advertising as a form of commercial speech.