Electoral bonds: Sibal seeks SIT probe into 'quid pro quo'

Rajya Sabha MP Kapil Sibal on Friday described the electoral bonds scheme as a 'very big scam' and demanded that a special investigation team (SIT) be set up with court-appointed officials to probe the alleged quid pro quo and wrongdoings under it.

Sibal, a senior advocate who is leading the arguments for the petitioners in a case in the Supreme Court against electoral bonds, alleged at a press conference in New Delhi that the scheme was 'illegal' and aimed at enriching a political party in such a manner that no other political party can compete with it.

His remarks came a day after the Election Commission (EC) put up the data on electoral bonds on its website.

Attacking the BJP-led Centre over the issue, Sibal said, "The person who started this scheme was our former finance minister (Arun Jaitley) and he thought that in this manner, no political party would be able to compete with us (BJP) and he was proven right. The one who has money can play the game."

The Rajya Sabha MP said it has to be investigated which political party got how much donation.

"The question is whom the bonds went to? The bond numbers can be found out, it is a matter of investigation," he said.

Asked about big business groups, such as Adani and Ambani, not featuring in the data, Sibal said, "We are jumping the gun. There may be a connection between some of those big companies and subsidiaries or some other kind of companies. This is too early to answer. That is why I have never made an allegation against any company, be it the big two or anyone else."

"As far as I am concerned, it is a matter to be investigated but the larger issue is, this was an illegal scheme to enrich a political party in a manner in which no other political party can compete with it. Since there is an element of quid pro quo which is obvious, prosecution under the Prevention of Corruption Act will happen but because the Enforcement Directorate has taken an overdose of sleeping tablets, it may not happen immediately, but it will happen," Sibal asserted.

Either the probe agencies will wake up or the court will wake them up, he added.

"As I said, there should be an SIT which should be set up with independent officers appointed by the court to investigate all this," Sibal said.

Those prosecuted by the ED and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) have been generous enough to give donations to political parties, he said.

It seems that against whomsoever there has been any proceeding initiated either by the ED or the CBI, they have given donations and then no further action was taken against them, he alleged.

"Then there are entities against whom no proceedings have been done but have vested interests and would have given money for that. That has to be matched. The third category is of shell companies," Sibal said.

Then there would be donor companies that were incurring losses or those whose profit was lesser than the amounts they have donated and that also needs to be probed, he added.

"So this money is a form of bribe and that money, if it has been spent on elections, is a very big scam. As I said, there are two big scams in India -- demonetisation and the other is this. Money had to come from Swiss banks but has come from these people," the former Congress leader said, taking a swipe at the Centre.

He said there are some gaps that need to be filled through investigation.

"It also needs to be found out who paid what in PM-CARES. That too would have been given by industrialists," Sibal said.

From steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal to billionaire Sunil Bharti Mittal's Airtel, Anil Agarwal's Vedanta, ITC, Mahindra and Mahindra, and a lesser-known company -- Future Gaming and Hotel Services -- were among the prominent buyers of the now-scrapped electoral bonds for making political donations.

Following a Supreme Court directive, the State Bank of India (SBI), which was the authorised seller of electoral bonds, shared the data with the poll panel on March 12.

The top court had given the EC time till 5 pm on Friday to upload the data on its website.

The SBI has said a total of 22,217 electoral bonds of varying denominations were purchased by donors between April 1, 2019 and February 15 this year, out of which 22,030 were redeemed by political parties.