Citizens' Accountability LedgerWho owned the mess? 25 years, every party, on the record

Case 30 · Fund opacity

Electoral bonds. The anonymous money machine

Scheme Jan 2018. Struck down Feb 2024

Struck down as unconstitutional

3,147 days since Nobody has been held to account.

Human cost
Every voter, stripped of the right to know who funds power
Financial cost
₹12,146 cr encashed in total; the ruling BJP took ~₹6,000 cr+, more than the next six parties combined

What happened

A scheme that let donors hand unlimited, publicly anonymous sums to parties through the state-owned SBI, while scrapping the cap on corporate donations.

Claim against record

What the government said

The government argued the scheme moved donations into banking channels and protected donor privacy.

What the record shows

Struck down as unconstitutional

Sold as transparency, it delivered secrecy for the public and visibility for whoever controlled the state bank. When the Supreme Court forced disclosure, the numbers confirmed the ruling party as the runaway top beneficiary. The Court struck the scheme down as unconstitutional in 2024. For the years of lopsided, hidden money it enabled, nobody was ever held to account.

Contested / alleged

Reporting and the opposition alleged patterns linking bond purchases to contracts and to the timing of agency raids on donors. These are contested allegations; the Court ruled on constitutionality, not on any specific quid pro quo.

What accountability should have looked like

Full public disclosure of every donor, a firm corporate cap, a bar on shell and loss-making donors, and a move to capped small-donor or state funding.

Ministers and office-holders responsible

Naming who held the portfolio is a matter of public record. It is not by itself a finding of personal responsibility for any death or any rupee.

Sources

T1 primary record · T2 reporting · T3 partisan

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Cite or export this case

Citizens' Accountability Ledger, "Electoral bonds. The anonymous money machine" (Scheme Jan 2018. Struck down Feb 2024), case-4. https://whoisresponsible.xyz/case/case-4/

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