KLNMurthy wrote: ↑15 Apr 2024 18:51
Sounds to me like it’s a huge stretch by the Supreme Court.
One point in the journey was whether voters had the right to know about candidates' criminal convictions and asset accumulations.
The Court said, yes, they do.
Then later it noted that political parties are not mentioned in the Constitution, but if voters have the right to know about candidates, they do about parties.
In any case, it appears to my layman’s mind that all that the electoral bonds law did was to replace the earlier “suitcases of cash” with banking instruments. If anything, it could be seen as a violation of FMLA, given that there is potential for turning black money into white.
The bank is supposed to conduct a full "Know Your Customer" (KYC) on anyone purchasing electoral bonds, I am not sure that black money can be turned into white by this mechanism. The bank then issues bonds with the only identifying mark being a serial number; the purchaser gets the bonds into the hands of which political parties they choose, and the political parties cash the bonds. Of course, the purchaser can tell the party, "I'm giving you these bonds", but in principle they could remain anonymous from the political party as well.
And the electoral bond purchase would be an income tax deduction for the purchaser.
Wonder why the court didn’t take that route? Maybe because it would be a retroactive application?
[/quote]
Yes, the black money route of donations is much more prone to abuse.
In any case, the braying about it being the biggest scam in history is nonsense.
So I saw some tweets that Megha Engineering was awarded the Zojila Pass Tunnel project with a timing that lines up with its purchase of electoral bonds that it gave to the BJP, the implication being that the award of the contract was improper.
However, as far as I can tell, the strategically important Zojila Pass Tunnel which would give India an all-weather road from Srinagar to Leh was conceived of in 2013 (UPA), and the government tried very hard to find a contractor who could deliver. The high altitude tunnel(s) in the Himalayas is very challenging. So the govt even changed the design/requirements.
Three times the contract was awarded and then cancelled, I think, twice because of non-performance of the contractors. Once Congressi Digvijay Singh alleged corruption on the part of Gadkari in awarding the contract and so the contract award was scrapped and redone. When Megha Engineering won the contract it was the lowest bid of the three (L&T, IRCon(?) were the other two). Surely they would have complained if they thought there was any shortcoming in the contract award. And as far as I can tell from press reports, Megha is doing a competent job.
I worry that this "greatest scam in history" will damage India's strategic interests.
I can't say that there were never any scams run with electoral bonds. What I can say that as far as the (prior to electoral bond reports) news available in the public over the years about the very important Zojila tunnel project is concerned, everything has the appearance of being above board. Allegations should not be randomly thrown about, but only when there is good reason to think that something wrong has occurred.
About Zojila Tunnel - I may have some detail wrong, if some BRFer has been following it, please correct me.
