THE “UNKNOWN income” of political parties from donations made under Rs 20,000 “has not shown ebbing” during the period 2018-2022, data furnished to the Supreme Court shows.
Citing the data, the concurring judgment of Justice Sanjiv Khanna said, “The total unknown income, that is donations made under Rs 20,000, sale of coupons etc has not shown ebbing and has substantially increased from Rs 2,550 crore during 2014-2015 to 2016-2017 to Rs 8,489 crore during 2018-19 to 2021-2022.”
It pointed out that “the share of income from unknown sources for national parties rose from 66% during 2014-2015 to 2016-2017 to 72% during 2018-2019 to 2021-2022. Between the years 2019-2020 and 2021-2022 the bond income has been 81% of the total unknown income of national parties”.
The court said the “…total income of the national parties without other known sources… increased from Rs 3,864 crore during 2014-2015 to 2016-2017 to Rs 11,829 crore during 2018-2019 to 2021-2022. The bond income between 2018-2019 and 2021-2022 constitutes 58% of the total income of the national political parties”.
The ruling also referred to annual audit reports of political parties from 2017-2018 to 2022-2023 on donations from electoral bonds. The data shows that the BJP received Rs 6,566.1249 crore, while the Congress got Rs 1,123.3155 crore and Trinamool Congress received Rs 1,092.9875 crore from 2018-2019 to 2022-2023.
The judgment said, “It is clear from the available data that the majority of contribution through bonds has gone to political parties which are ruling parties in the Centre and the states. There has also been a substantial increase in contributions/donations through bonds.”
Citing data furnished by one of the petitioner NGOs, Association for Democratic Rights, the SC said it “shows that party-wise donations by corporate houses have been more or less stagnant from 2016-2017 to 2021-2022”.
The court said data on denomination of bonds sold in 27 phases from March 2018 to July 2023 submitted by the petitioner shows that “more than 50% of the bonds in number, and 94% of the bonds in value terms were for Rs 1 crore’.
Of the total bonds worth Rs 13,791.8979 crore sold during this period, Rs 1 crore denomination bonds accounted for Rs 12,999 crore. Bonds of Rs 10 lakh making a total of Rs 761.80 crore and those worth Rs 1 lakh accounting for Rs 30.88 crore were also sold during this period.