After Electoral Bonds, India Needs a Durable Right to Know

India’s constitutional arguments often turn on the limits of state power. Political finance presents a less direct question: what must citizens know about the private money that helps political organisations acquire that power? An election offers a choice between candidates and programmes. It cannot offer fully informed consent if significant financial relationships behind those choices remain hidden.

In February 2024, a five-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court unanimously invalidated the electoral-bonds scheme. Its central conclusion was constitutional, not merely administrative: denying voters information about political funding infringed their right to information under Article 19(1)(a). The Court also rejected the removal of the limit on corporate political contributions as manifestly arbitrary under Article 14.

That judgment remains a useful starting point for a live constitutional problem. How should India reconcile voters’ entitlement to understand political influence with contributors’ legitimate interest in privacy? The answer cannot simply be that every donation must be secret, or that every donor must be exposed. It requires a framework that distinguishes participation from the purchase of access—and makes that distinction enforceable.

What the Court put beyond secrecy

Electoral bonds were banking instruments through which eligible purchasers could contribute to eligible political parties. The public could not ordinarily identify the relationship between purchaser and recipient. Defenders argued that the scheme would move political contributions into formal banking channels while protecting donors from retaliation.

Those objectives were not inherently frivolous. Cash financing weakens accountability, and political affiliation can expose individuals or businesses to pressure. But a bank record and a public record serve different purposes. The former may allow an authorised institution to investigate a transaction. The latter allows citizens to assess the relationships surrounding public decisions. Formalisation is not the same as transparency.

The Court’s reasoning recognised that political contributions may generate access and influence, especially when made by companies. Information about such funding can therefore matter to a voter’s assessment of a party. The state could not treat donor confidentiality as an automatic answer to that democratic interest. Nor could it assume that an instrument passing through a bank adequately addressed the constitutional problem.

The ruling did not establish that every contribution buys a favour. That distinction is essential. It established why voters need information with which to investigate and evaluate influence. Disclosure makes scrutiny possible; it does not predetermine what scrutiny will find.

A right to know, not a licence to insinuate

Political-finance data invite easy narratives. A company contributes money; a public authority subsequently grants an approval, awards a contract or changes a regulation. The sequence may warrant examination. It does not, by itself, establish a corrupt exchange. Timing is evidence to investigate, not a verdict.

A credible disclosure system should make it easier to test such relationships without encouraging guilt by association. Donation records need consistent names, reliable dates and identifiers that permit comparison with corporate filings and public procurement records. Otherwise, disclosure becomes a labour-intensive matching exercise, accessible mainly to well-resourced organisations. A constitutional right loses practical value when exercising it requires specialist reconstruction.

Publication must also be timely. Information released well after an election may support historical accountability, but it cannot inform the vote already cast. Larger contributions should therefore be disclosed promptly, with reporting intervals short enough to make the information relevant during an election campaign. Routine publication would also reduce dependence on exceptional litigation.

The corresponding obligation falls on journalists, researchers and political competitors. They should separate established financial links from allegations about motive. Records should be corrigible, and donors and recipients should have an opportunity to explain apparent connections. Transparency works best when it supplies verifiable facts, not when it becomes a machinery for insinuation.

Privacy deserves a narrower, stronger defence

The strongest argument against indiscriminate disclosure concerns people with little power. A modest contribution may express conviction, solidarity or membership rather than any expectation of privileged access. Publishing every contributor’s identity could discourage participation, especially where political preferences affect employment, business relationships or personal security.

India’s constitutional protection of privacy makes this concern substantive. The electoral-bonds judgment itself considered informational privacy in political affiliation. But recognising a privacy interest does not establish that all contributions deserve identical confidentiality. An individual’s small payment and a substantial corporate transfer differ in their likely implications for democratic influence.

A proportionate system would protect genuinely small contributions while requiring disclosure above a carefully chosen threshold. Aggregation is indispensable: repeated payments from the same donor must count together, and rules must address artificial splitting. The threshold should be publicly justified and periodically reviewed, rather than selected for the convenience of recipients.

Public disclosure should also exclude unnecessary personal details. Citizens may need to know who supplied a significant sum and to whom; they do not need the donor’s bank-account number or home address. Regulators can retain more detailed information under secure procedures. Protection against retaliation should likewise be strengthened through lawful, reviewable safeguards. Blanket secrecy for powerful contributors is an ill-targeted remedy for the vulnerability of ordinary citizens.

Corporate money needs corporate accountability

Corporate political spending presents a further problem: the money does not belong personally to the executive who authorises the payment. It comes from an institution with shareholders, creditors, employees and commercial obligations. Political contributions can expose that institution to financial and reputational risks while serving preferences that its stakeholders do not share.

The Court’s rejection of unlimited corporate contributions was therefore more than a technical correction. A funding regime must recognise the difference between a citizen exercising political choice and a company deploying pooled economic resources. Restrictions on corporate giving require their own justification, but treating the two as interchangeable overlooks a central source of unequal influence.

India needs a clear framework combining limits, authorisation and disclosure. Corporate reports should identify political recipients and amounts in a form that shareholders can readily understand. Board responsibility should be traceable. Substantial political spending should receive scrutiny proportionate to its scale, rather than disappearing inside broad accounting categories. These obligations would complement, not replace, disclosure by parties.

Rules must also look through intermediaries where necessary. A nominal donor may reveal little if the real source of funds is concealed behind connected entities. Regulators need powers and capacity to investigate such arrangements, with safeguards against arbitrary inquiry. The objective is not to presume corporate wrongdoing. It is to prevent legal form from defeating the disclosure that constitutional accountability requires.

Build an institution, not another exception

Even well-designed rules can fail through fragmented enforcement. India’s political-finance framework spans election law, company law, tax provisions and reporting requirements administered by different institutions. Contributions can change form when one route becomes less attractive. Reform focused exclusively on the instrument invalidated by the Court would invite displacement rather than solve the underlying problem.

A coherent system should use common reporting standards across lawful funding channels. Party accounts and contribution reports should be independently audited, digitally searchable and comparable over time. Cash receipts need particular scrutiny because their origin is harder to verify. Enforcement priorities should be published, and penalties should be predictable and proportionate. Selective enforcement would turn transparency from a public good into a source of leverage.

The Election Commission requires sufficient technical capacity to scrutinise reports rather than merely receive them. Relevant authorities should be able to reconcile information under clear legal procedures. Independent review and reasoned decisions are important safeguards: an institution that can investigate political money must itself be protected from political pressure and held accountable for its conduct.

Disclosure alone will not equalise political competition, eliminate illicit money or prevent influence from operating through informal networks. Nor does the Constitution promise that every participant will possess equal financial resources. It does, however, constrain arrangements that unnecessarily prevent citizens from understanding important relationships between money and power.

The next settlement should therefore be judged by ordinary questions. Can a voter identify a significant contributor before voting? Can a small donor participate without needless exposure? Can an investigator trace funds without relying on a leak? Can a company’s stakeholders see what was authorised in their name? A framework that answers these questions would turn a landmark judgment into durable democratic infrastructure. India needs that more than it needs another ingenious funding instrument.