On Thursday, the Supreme Court reserved the pleas challenging the validity of Central government’s electoral bond scheme and directed the Election Commission to provide within two weeks all data on donations that political parties received through the scheme till September 30 this year.

Stressing the need for reducing the cash component in the electoral process, The apex court said the electoral bonds scheme for funding political parties should not become a tool for “legitimisation of quid pro quo” between power centres and people who are benefactors of that power.

After hearing for three days the pleas against the Centre’s scheme introduced in 2017, a five-judge constitution bench led by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud reserved its verdict.

During the hearing, the bench also comprising Justices Sanjiv Khanna, BR Gavai, JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra said that at this stage, it will not ask the State Bank of India to reveal the identity of the donors, but it would like to know about the quantum of bonds subscribed.

A major contention of the petitioners was that the identity of the donors could never be known to the public.

Defending the Centre, Solicitor General of India (SG) Tushar Mehta had told the apex court that donations made through electoral bonds are kept anonymous to protect the privacy and political affiliation of the citizens who make such donations to political parties. “Each and every word was very consciously used and what the petitioners have called ‘anonymity or opaqueness’ was neither anonymous nor opaque but was ‘confidentiality by design’,” Mehta had argued.