 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. We're going to discuss the election bonds issue that come up in the front of the Supreme Court today which we are expecting a verdict tomorrow. A very surprising claim made by the Attorney General who said, Mr. Venugopal who said that why do people have to know who's given the money? While he himself argues that there is no anonymity because the argument of the election bonds has been the anonymity of the donations because the income tax department and the bank reserve bank in this case or state bank in this case anyway knows where the money is going or who has taken bought the election bonds. So two conflicting situations, one anonymity for the voter but no anonymity for the party buying the election bonds and therefore to the government. You are indeed the, it's very very unusual and Mr. Jaitley, Arun Jaitley had used I think a slightly more sophisticated way of putting the same thing. This is a way of ensuring that more, that illegal money doesn't go in, that more of the donations go in through quote unquote banking channels. But Mr. Venugopal the Attorney General of India what he told the Supreme Court was in my opinion and the opinion of many others rather unusual and let me just quote what he said. He says voters have the right to know what and then he said if political parties get money it should not matter. The voters need to know where this money has come from so long as it is legal. Now wait that was not all and I quote him according to the law portals that have come out. He said every illegal move to who voters is adopted that is the way of life. Political leaders travelling in helicopters huge money spent where does this money come from? It is black money. This is the Attorney General acknowledging that all this money or much of this money is black money. Then he goes on to say that why don't you allow this scheme to run as a quote unquote experiment and let the new government when it comes to part take a call on whether to continue or not. Now I personally believe that right from day one in fact if you recall it was announced by Mr. Arun Jaitleef the Finance Minister in the budget which was in February 2017 but it was finally introduced in January 2018. As a part of the money bill? Yes. These are financial instruments. I mean everybody says what are these bonds? Why are they called bonds? In financial markets a bond is like a debt instrument but this is akin to what is called a promissory note that you promise to pay the bearer of this note X amount of money. Now it meant that anybody an individual or an entity any kind of entity including a corporate entity could buy on designated dates designated amounts of money from the State Bank of India. As the Chief Justice of India Mr. Ranjan Gogoy he pointed out he said that if indeed those who purchase these bonds they have to go through KYC I mean know your customer norms. That means in other words the State Bank of India knows who has purchased the bond right? Then he says then the I mean this is not me but the Chief Justice saying the entire exercise of fighting black money becomes futile. I will just take a step back on all of that. The argument that Jaitleef has been giving that vindictive action can be taken by new government or the party which comes into power. Therefore this anonymity of the person taking the or giving the money to political party is good because it protects him or her. Now there's a counter argument to this. No no but this is Jaitleef's argument of this is why it is being introduced apart from now the new one that is giving instead of black money in elections that this is white money and I'm not getting into the issues has black money used or not but let us take the argument on its face value. Okay. That effectively somebody giving money to a political party can be victimized by the ruling party. The ruling party has got the maximum amount of money in this. Now it transpires the ruling party in any case would know who has purchased the bonds. No one minute one minute one minute one minute let's go step by step. The identity of the purchase of these electoral bonds that is known to the State Bank of India because of the know your customer norms. Now the details of who has purchased these bonds are kept confidential or they're supposed to be kept confidential by the bank and forward to the central repository at the end of the month but everybody who buys the bond has to give it to a recognized political party and eventually that will get reflected when that party submit its accounts to the Election Commission of India. Now the interesting part of the story is what the lawyers pointed out. Rakesh Devedi arguing for the Election Commission of India said we do not oppose to bonds per se but to the anonymity. The anonymity because they want. Still we are coming to that point. Okay. But the point I'm making is one of the argument is that while there is anonymity to the voter which is what Attorney General has said, but there is no anonymity in front of the ruling regime. Okay. Because you just told us. Just told us. Okay. Because the income tax department, Mr. Venugopal is saying this, not me, not you. Mr. Venugopal says income tax department in any case knows it. One minute. So that is two or three assumptions we are making. That when the State Bank of India provides this information to the central repository, the Ministry of Finance including the income tax department can get to know who has bought how much bonds. This is the assumption. Now Prashant Bhushan who was the advocate representing the Association for Democratic Reforms, one of the civil society organizations besides the Communist Party of India, Marxist who are petitioners in this case, he said that out of according to him the 220 crore bonds that have been purchased so far, 210 have gone to the Bhartya Janta Party. Now the question that we have to… This was the first set of bonds to be released. This was in 2018. They have been various series. Yes. But I am saying we should not think 250 crores is all that we are talking about. No, no. It could be much, much more than that. It's much higher. It's about something like 2000 crores because the last tranche was much bigger. You see the point is we have no way of knowing really unless this information is disclosed. Now all the media reports that have been pointed out seem to be dependent on leaks coming from the club. And the other interesting part of the story, and this is the whole thing about recognizing who's about whom, an investigation done by the portal Quint found out that each of these bonds actually have a serial number. So that means each of these bonds are numbered. So you can match the serial number of the bond with the person who's purchased it. The short point is. And the party deposit tickets, all the correlations. The short point is we will know what the Supreme Court will have to say on Friday the 12th of April. But those who believe this is nothing. I mean, though Mr. Jaitley claims it's going to bring greater transparency to political funding. In fact, it is can be argued that the reverse is the case that this has really provided a new channel to individuals and corporates to donate money to parties. You know, Parujay, I was in fact talking about today only what Merugopal has argued. Because we go to the election bonds, the issue is any entity anywhere in the world can give money through election bonds. It can set up a company in India that that company may have no business except giving money to a political party. It could be a shell company. It could be a dummy company. It would be a shell company if it had no other business. So all of this is permitted. And observers who have or analysts who have analyzed this have said this is the most permissive scheme we've ever seen in terms of election funding in any country in the world. You know, it's truly amazing. And when the Attorney General of India raises a question, whether the voters have the right to know how their political parties are getting the money. I think the big news is that today that the voters don't have the right to know. But the government in any case has will know, will get to know. And therefore the gently argument that actually this is to keep the identity secret from the powers that be. So he's not penalized. That argument has been today contradicted by the attorneys. Now you can turn that entire logic of the electoral bonds on its head and say that if the government of the day knows who is purchasing the bond and therefore will also know to whom eventually to where it has gone, it will actually dissuade donors from giving any money to the political opponents of the government because they'll feel they're going to be victimized. And if indeed these figures that have been put out, 90% of the money or more than 90%, 95% of the money has gone to the BJP then that would just reinforce this contention. Thank you very much for your apology for being with us. Keep watching, do click and do visit our website.