Bengaluru court orders FIR against Nirmala Sitharaman: Finance Minister accused of extortion through electoral bonds

A special court in Bengaluru has ordered to register an FIR against Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on September 27. The Finance Minister has been accused of extortion through electoral bonds.

Adarsh ​​Iyer of Janadhikar Sangharsh Parishad (JSP) had filed a complaint in Bengaluru demanding direction to take action against Union Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.

According to media reports, while hearing the petition, the court ordered Bengaluru’s Tilak Nagar Police Station to register an FIR. The next hearing will be on October 10.

Complaint was made in April 2024 Janadhikar Sangharsh Parishad had complained against Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, ED officials, BJP National President JP Nadda, BJP national leaders, then BJP Karnataka President Nalin Kumar Kateel, BY Vijayendra in a petition filed in the 42nd ACMM Court in April. Hearing on this was held on Friday.

The complaint said that from April 2019 to August 2022, about Rs 230 crore was collected from businessman Anil Aggarwal’s firm and Rs 49 crore from Aurobindo Pharmacy through electoral bonds.

The Supreme Court had said – the scheme is unconstitutional On February 15, 2024, the Supreme Court had banned the electoral bond scheme for political funding with immediate effect. The Supreme Court had said – this scheme is unconstitutional. Maintaining the confidentiality of the bond is unconstitutional. This scheme is a violation of the Right to Information. The court had ordered SBI and the Election Commission to make public the entire data related to electoral bonds.

The data was revealed on March 21. It was revealed that from 2018 to 2023, 771 companies of the country had bought bonds worth Rs 11,484 crore. Trading companies gave the maximum amount of Rs 2955 crore to political parties.

After the data was made public, in July 2024 also, a petition was filed in the Supreme Court to get the transactions between corporates and political parties investigated by the SIT.

Before the Lok Sabha elections, the Finance Minister had said that the scheme will be brought back. Before the Lok Sabha elections, the Finance Minister had hinted at bringing back the bond scheme. In an interview to Hindustan Times, Nirmala Sitharaman said that if we come to power, we will bring back the Electoral Bond Scheme. For this, suggestions will be taken on a large scale first. However, many opposition parties including Congress had said on this statement of hers – how much more does BJP want to loot the people now.

Electoral bonds were introduced in the 2017 budget by the then finance minister Arun Jaitley. The central government notified it on 2 January 2018. It is a kind of promissory note. It is also called a bank note. Any Indian citizen or company can buy it.

If you want to buy it, you will get it in selected branches of State Bank of India. The person who buys it can donate this bond to the party of his choice. That party should just be eligible for this.

What is the whole matter? This scheme was challenged in 2017 itself, but the hearing started in 2019. On April 12, 2019, the Supreme Court directed all political parties to give all the information related to electoral bonds in an envelope to the Election Commission by May 30, 2019. However, the court did not stop this scheme.

Later in December 2019, the petitioner Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) filed an application to stay the scheme. It cited media reports that pointed out how the concerns of the Election Commission and the Reserve Bank on the electoral bond scheme were ignored by the central government.

Why is there controversy over this? In 2017, while presenting this, Arun Jaitley had claimed that this will bring transparency in the funding of political parties and the election system. Black money will be curbed. On the other hand, those opposing it say that the identity of the person buying electoral bonds is not disclosed, due to which these can become a means of using black money in elections.

Some people allege that this scheme has been brought keeping in mind the big corporate houses. With this, these houses can donate as much as they want to political parties without revealing their identity.