The Supreme Court on Thursday issued notice to the Centre and the Election Commission on a petition seeking mandatory imposition of a ceiling on the expenditures of political parties on and during elections.
The petition also seeks that Explanation 1(A) to Section 77(1) of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, which exempts political parties from any poll expenditure ceiling, be declared unconstitutional.
A bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice Vipul M. Pancholi initially expressed reservations about whether it was possible to regulate such expenditure, saying friends and individuals could still contribute towards election expenses.
However, advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for both Common Cause and the Centre for Public Interest Litigation, argued that a Constitution bench of the Supreme Court had in the electoral bond case of 2024 noted the “exclusionary and distortionary impact of unregulated expenses of political parties on the outcome of elections, on democratic participation, and equality of opportunity”.
The bench posted the matter for further hearing on April 27.
According to the petitioners, while Section 77(1) of the Representation of the People Act, read with Rule 90 of the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961, imposes strict ceilings on poll expenditure by individual candidates, there exists no such corresponding limits on the expenses incurred by political parties.
Furthermore, Explanation 1(a) to Section 77(1) expressly excludes expenses incurred by leaders and star campaigners from the ambit of the expenditure by individual candidates.
These legal anomalies enable political parties to spend unlimited amounts of money during elections, rendering the statutory ceiling on individual candidates’ expenditure wholly illusory and ineffective, the petitioners contended. It also frustrates the objective behind introducing such a provision in the first place, they added.
“This dichotomy has been judicially acknowledged by a Constitution Bench of this Hon’ble Court in Association for Democratic Reforms & Another vs. Union of India & Ors. 2024, which clearly pointed out the exclusionary and distortionary impact of unregulated expenses of political parties on the outcome of elections, on democratic participation, and equality of opportunity,” the petition said.
“Unregulated party expenditure has also contributed to the increasing ‘presidentialisation’ of Indian elections, where campaigns are centred around projecting a single leader through massive amounts of money being spent, contrary to the intentions of the framers and the constitutional design of a parliamentary democracy established based on the Westminster Model under the Constitution of India,” it added.
“Furthermore, comparative constitutional practices across the world show that regulation of election expenditure incurred by political parties is both feasible as well as necessary in a constitutional democracy.”