Todays in History (February 16^th, 1918)

In 1918, Lithuania was proclaimed an independent state after the adoption of the Act of Independence by the Council of Lithuania.

Summary of Today’s News

SC rules electoral bonds scheme unconstitutional

Context: In a landmark unanimous judgment, the Supreme Court on Thursday struck down as “unconstitutional and manifestly arbitrary” the electoral bonds scheme,

Key Points

• 5-judge Bench said that the voters’ right to information about political funding under Article 19(1)(a) is violated
• Scheme authorized influence of corporates in electoral process by allowing unlimited political ‘contributions’

Why and what are the reasons?

• The electoral bonds scheme provides blanket anonymity to political donors.
• The scheme is allowing rich corporations to make unlimited political donations.
• The bench held that the scheme, and preceding amendments made to the Representation of the People Act, the Companies Act, and the Income Tax Act, violated the voters’ right to information about political funding (Article 19 (1)(a))
• “This is violative of the principle of free and fair elections and political equality captured in a value of ‘one person, one vote’.
• The absolute non-disclosure of the source of political funding through electoral bonds promoted corruption, and a culture of quid pro quo with the ruling party to introduce a policy change or for bagging a license.
• Money-politics nexus “contributions made by companies are purely business transactions made with the intent of securing benefits in return”.
• The scheme allowed “huge contributions” by multinational corporations with major business stakes in the country, overawing or even concealing the relatively small financial contributions of people who believe in the ideologies of a political party without expecting any substantial favours in return.
• Voters vs donors– Threat to democracy because the elected would not truly responsive to the electorate if companies which bring with them huge finances and engage in quid pro quo arrangements with parties are permitted to contribute unlimited amounts.
• The scheme and the amendments promoted “economic inequality” by giving corporations with financial power an unsurpassable advantage over ordinary citizens in the electoral process and political engagement.
• The court agreed that the fundamental right to privacy covers a person’s political affiliation.
• There should be a balance between informational privacy and the voters’ right to information.
  • The court dismissed the Union government’s argument that the anonymity political funding enshrined in Article 19(1) (a).
  • The court rubbished the government’s claim that the scheme was meant to curb the injection of black money into the electoral process.

Modi visits Qatar days after release of ex-Navy officers

• His visit came days after Qatar’s legal authorities freed eight Indian Navy veterans, who were accused in an alleged espionage case and given death sentence by a lower court in October 2023.
• Capital of Qatar is Doha.
• Prime Minister Narendra Modi has invited the ruler of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, to visit India.
• The invitation was extended during their interaction in Qatar earlier on Thursday.

An intervention that will help strengthen legal education

• The Parliamentary Standing Committee
  • On Personnel, Public Grievances, Law, and Justice
• Recently submitted a significant report on legal education,
• It has given several path-breaking recommendations to strengthen the quality of legal education in India.
• Since Independence, legal education, unlike medicine and engineering, has not been a top priority for India’s policymakers.
• Things started to change for the better in the 1990s with the advent of the National Law Universities (NLUs) in India.
• Buoyed by the winds of liberalisation and globalization,
  • the Indian economy in the 1990s threw up many new opportunities for lawyers,
  • which, in turn, led to bright young students opting to study law right after school.
• Several NLU graduates got placed in high-paying law firm jobs
• Many others went abroad to study at top universities,
• Quite a few bagging prestigious scholarships such as Rhodes and Chevening.
• However, the same cannot be said about hundreds of other law schools nationwide that essentially represent a “sea of institutionalized mediocrity”.
• Most of the NLUs too, while successfully attracting excellent students, have failed to emerge as centres of excellence in legal research.
• This is borne by the fact that only two Indian law schools, Jindal Global Law School and National Law School of India University, figure in the QS rankings of the top 250 law schools worldwide.