Electoral bond matters have been headlines on the front page of newspapers before the 2024 Loksabha election. Since 2019, electoral bonds have centralised wealth to the strongest political party, the BJP. In 2024 the BJP was elected to the government for the third time. After the election, it again came to the front page news.
Sri Adarsh R Iyer the Co-president of Janadhikaara Sangharsa Parisath filed a complaint at Bangalore Court. The Hon’ble court took cognizance and ordered to file an FIR using the power specified under section 156 of CrPC. The FIR was lodged at Tilaknagar City police station having FIR no 224-2024.
Alleged provisions of the complaint and FIR are of extortion, criminal conspiracy and common intention. Here extortion means the accused used fear to extract money from the victims. Provisions of common intentions are invoked when there are numerous accuses involved in a criminal act.
The case was filed against Nirmala Sitharamana the Hon’ble Finance Minister of India and other BJP leaders. The investigating agencies were also named in this FIR.
Upon registration of FIR police have the power to investigate criminal acts of accuses. There was a probability that the investigation would lead to many big corporate families.
Before the police could initiate the investigation the state BJP leader of Karnataka Mr. Naleen Kumar Kateel filed a criminal petition (10321/2024) in the High Court of Karnataka. The criminal petition prayed to quash the investigation procedure of the case or pass an interim order to stay the investigation.
The petitioner in the High Court mentioned that prima facie there was no act of extortion at all. However, the learned counsel for the respondent argued that there is a classical act of extortion. Further, the response marked that the investigating agency generated fear amongst certain companies and the Hon’ble Supreme Court has left it open to the accused to take recourse for the remedies.
The petitioner marked that the acts of companies were voluntary not a reflection of the alleged fear. They also mentioned that the respondent has no standing before the lower court as the petitioner has not suffered any injury of extortion.
The Court held that a mere promise to do things in lieu of payment does not amount to extortion. Further, the court could not find any evidence that a company was put in fear and contributions were made in response. The Court was satisfied with the petitioner's arguments and said that the matter could only be considered once the respondents submitted their statements. Meanwhile, any proceeding by the investigating agency would become an abuse of the process of law. Therefore the court stayed the proceeding of the investigating agency.