Unbridled use of money power in elections | Supreme Court issues notice to Centre, Election Commission over PIL

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday decided to examine a plea against the unregulated use of money power by political parties for election purposes, contending that the unbridled use of money power in elections must be stopped.

A bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and Vipul M Pancholi issued notice to the Union government and the Election Commission on a plea by NGO Common Cause.

Advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for the NGO, said the unregulated use of money power by political parties for election purposes is an issue that goes to the root of our democracy.

He said that at present, there is a limit on the expenditure of individual candidates under the law, though that limit is not enforced very often because people spend in cash.

The bench, however, said there is something beyond Bhushan's proposal and referred to the US elections. The court said that there are spending limits for a party, and when that limit is reached, a pact is created among a candidate's friends.

“Let us say an Indian-American pact will fund you, where is the limit,” the bench asked, pointing out that friends of a political party will fund.

The bench further said that if there is no funding beyond the X limit, then he will come before the court saying Article 19 (1) (a) freedom of expression and expression through material support, and asked, “How will we control that?”

The counsel argued that Parliament put a restriction on candidates. 

The bench said, now the counsel wanted that restriction to be enlarged to the political party. As Bhushan agreed, the bench asked, “Will that be sufficient?”

Bhushan said. "If I spend money on a candidate, it is normally calculated in their election expenditure, but if a political party spends, that is not calculated, and unfortunately, there is no limit on a political party regarding the maximum it can spend in a year."

“This court in the electoral bonds case had said in a large number of paragraphs that this is a scourge. This is a huge problem, and it is skewing our electoral democracy. There is unbridled use of money and power by political parties in elections, etc and this needs to be stopped. It needs to be curbed,” Bhushan contended.

Seeking a response from the Centre and others, the court decided to take up the matter after six weeks.