How electoral bonds have created the illusion that political funding in India is becoming clean
electoral bonds. GoI, represented by solicitor general Tushar Mehta, opposed citizens' right to know about who supplies money to political parties, citing political donors' right to privacy.
There is a strong case to be made in favour of the right to know.
Transparency is not only a right of citizens to know about who funds parties, but also the most effective mechanism to regulate political funding. As lawyer Gautam Bhatia argued two years ago, transparency is necessary to avoid the purchase of policies and regulatory capture, and to ensure some fairness in the allocation of resources between political parties.
On the other hand, full transparency would create its own problems.
It may deter corporations from using legal pathways and resort to even more obscure or illicit ways of donating. Even banning corporate donations altogether would not stop the flow of money, given the centrality of money in politics.
The question of which right ought to prevail over the other is not merely philosophical or normative, but also a practical one.
The solicitor general was not wrong when he stated that full transparency of donors' identity might expose them to retribution. In its early years, AAP sought to establish transparency of its funding by publicising its donors' list.
It converted them into targets for investigative agencies, and AAP had to quickly let go of its transparency ambitions.
One of the many problems associated with electoral bonds is that they provide selective anonymity, something that the bench itself noted in its remarks. While citizens and opposition parties do not have access to any information regarding who donated to whom, the government and, therefore, party in power may have access to some information
