Electoral Bond Scheme: Supreme Court reserves judgment

Today, the Supreme Court of India reserved the judgment on the matter related to the legal validation of the electoral bonds scheme after hearing it for three days. Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, Justice BR Gavai, Justice Manoj Misra, Justice JB Pardiwala, and Justice Sanjiv Khanna were hearing the matter. The hearing began today, November 02, 2023, with the submissions of Solicitor General Tushar Mehta and others including Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal, Advocate Shadan Farasat, Advocate Kanu Agrawal, Attorney General R Venkataramani, Advocate Amit Sharma, Advocate Prashant Bhushan, and Advocate Vijay Hansaria also presented their submissions regarding the matter before the Supreme Court. While reserving the judgment, CJI said, “We would like the ECI to get the data up to September 30, 2023. We have heard arguments. Judgment reserved. In April 2019 there was an interim direction to ECI and as per that, a sealed cover document was produced. The order of the court was not restricted to that date and a clarification could have been sought. Now ECI is to submit updated data till Sep 30, 2023, in a sealed cover to the registrar judicial of this court within 2 weeks.”