The Supreme Court on Friday said that it will hear on July 22 a batch of petitions, including those of the NGOs — Common Cause and Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL), seeking a court-monitored probe by an independent Special Investigation Team (SIT) into the alleged instances of quid pro quo between corporates and various political parties which received funds through the Electoral Bonds donations.

The petitioners have sought the SIT probe under the supervision of a retired judge of the Supreme Court.

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Heading a bench comprising Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice Manoj Misra, Chief Justice DY Chandrachud said the court will hear the matter on Monday (July 22) after advocate Prashant Bhushan mentioned it for early hearing, tagging a related application that was listed for hearing on Friday, with the main petition that will come up for hearing on July 22.

The petitioner NGOs — Common Cause and the Centre for Public Interest Litigation — had sought direction from the authorities to investigate the source of funding by the shell as well as loss-making companies to various political parties, as has come into 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 have also sought direction to the concerned authorities to recover the amount from the political parties, which was donated as part of the quid pro quo arrangements and the same was found to be the proceeds of crime.

The petition says 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 to secure government contracts or licences; ensure protection from investigations by the CBI, the Income Tax Department, the Enforcement Directorate; and as consideration of favourable policy changes.

“The data 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,” states the petitions by the NGOs.

The NGOs have stated: “The investigation, in this case, would not only need to unravel the entire conspiracy in each instance, which involves 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 have 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.”