A petition was filed in the Supreme Court on Wednesday for constituting a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to investigate each instance of quid pro quo, corruption, and kickbacks that had been revealed through the disclosure of details on electoral bonds.
The petition, filed by Common Cause and the Centre for Public Interest Litigation, represented by advocate Prashant Bhushan and Cheryl D’Souza, said some of the country’s main investigative agencies, including the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Enforcement Directorate (ED), and the Income Tax (I-T) Department “appear to have become accessories to corruption”.
Several firms that were under investigation by these agencies had donated large sums of money to the ruling party, potentially to influence the outcomes of the probes, the petition said.
“Thus, the investigation in this case would not only need to unravel the entire conspiracy in each instance, which would involve officers of the company, officials of the government and functionaries of political parties but also the officers concerned of agencies like the ED/I-T and CBI etc., who appear to have become part of this conspiracy,” it submitted.
Referring to reports and extensive data mining done by The Hindu and other media outlets, the petition said the information published revealed that the bulk of the bonds appear to have been given as quid pro quo arrangements by corporate entities to political parties.
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“Though these apparent payoffs amount to several thousand crores, they appear to have influenced contracts worth lakhs of crores and regulatory inaction by agencies worth of thousands of crores and also appear to have allowed substandard or dangerous drugs to be sold in the market, endangering the lives of millions of people in the country. That is why the electoral bonds scam has been called by many astute observers as the largest scam in India so far, and perhaps in the world,” the petition said.
