In a big relief to political parties across the spectrum, the Supreme Court on Friday rejected a plea by the NGO Common Cause, Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL) and others seeking a probe by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) monitored by a retired judge of the top court into the alleged quid pro quo involving donations by big corporates through, now quashed, electoral bonds in exchange for government contracts, policy tweaking or investigation agencies – CBI, ED and Income Tax authorities – developing inertia and going silent on their probes.

Refusing to order an SIT probe into the allegations of quid pro quo, Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, heading a bench comprising Justice J.B. Pardiwala and Justice Manoj Misra, asked the petitioner NGOs — Common Cause, CPIL, and others — to take recourse to remedies available under the normal course of law, starting with the registration of FIRs and subsequent investigations.

The bench said that it is of the considered view that the constitution of an SIT headed by a former judge of this court should not be ordered when remedies under the law governing criminal procedure have not been availed.

“At the present stage, absent recourse to remedies available under the law to pursue such grievances, it would be both premature – because intervention under Article 32 must be preceded by the invocation of the normal remedies under the law and contingent upon the failure of those remedies – and inappropriate – because intervention by this court at the present stage would postulate that the normal remedies which are available under the law are not efficacious – for this court to issue such directions,” the bench said in its order refusing to set up an SIT.

The top court also rejected their demand to direct the authorities to recover the donations received by political parties through Electoral Bonds and to reopen their income tax assessments.

It added, “Issuing a direction of that nature at the present stage would amount to a conclusion on facts which would be inappropriate…”

Making a distinction between the top court hearing a batch of petitions, including those by the Association for Democratic Reforms challenging the vires of the electoral bond scheme itself, and the plea for an SIT probe monitored by a retired judge of the top court when the remedies under the normal course of law are available to the petitioner, Chief Justice Chandrachud said that it would amount to a “roving inquiry”.

However, the bench, which was reluctant to order the setting up of an SIT right from the word go, was not persuaded even after advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for the two NGOs, suggested that apprehensions of a roving inquiry could be taken care of by SIT raking up investigation only in the cases identified by the retired top court judge, assisted by retired officers from the investigating agencies — CBI, ED and the Income Tax Department.

Bhushan told the court that this was the biggest financial scam in the country, allegedly involving some officers of the CBI, ED, and Income Tax Department, as well as political parties and big corporates. He argued that such a case could not be investigated by merely following the normal course of law, starting with the registration of FIRs.

Bhushan cited the instance of the top court monitoring the CBI investigation into the Coalgate case, which involved only the cancellation of wrongfully allocated coal mines.

The petitioner NGOs – Common Cause and the Centre for Public Interest Litigation – had sought directions for the authorities to investigate the source of funding from the shell and loss-making companies to various political parties, as the information came into the public domain from the electoral bonds data released by the State Bank of India to the Election Commission of India on the directions of the top court.

The petitioner NGOs had also sought directions for the concerned authorities to recover from political parties the amount donated as part of quid pro quo arrangements if the same is found to be proceeds of crime.

The petitions had said that the data which has come into the public domain reveals that the bulk of the electoral bonds appears to have been given by certain corporates to different political parties by way of alleged quid pro quo arrangements either to secure government contracts or licences, secure protection from investigations by the CBI, Income Tax Department, and Enforcement Directorate or receive favourable policy changes.

“The data as published by the ECI on its website exposed how quid pro quo arrangements have potentially been made between large corporates and political parties in the last 6 years through the use of electoral bonds. The data shows private companies have paid crores of funds to political parties either as “protection money’ for protection against agencies under the central government or as a “bribe” in return for undue benefits. In some instances, it has been seen that the political parties in power at the centre or in states have apparently amended policies and/or laws to provide benefits to private corporates at the cost of public interest and the public exchequer,” the petitions by the NGOs had stated.

The NGOs stated, “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/IT and CBI, etc., who appear to have become part of this conspiracy.”

To buttress its plea for the court-monitored SIT probe, the NGOs in their petition said, “In the Electoral Bond scam, some of the country’s main investigative agencies such as the CBI, Enforcement Directorate and the Income Tax Department appear to have become accessories to corruption. Several firms, which were under investigation by these agencies, have donated large sums of money to the ruling party, potentially to influence outcomes of probes.”