India's Supreme Court on Thursday scrapped a seven-year-old election funding system that allows individuals and companies to donate money to political parties anonymously and without any limits, calling it "unconstitutional". Ednews informs citing Reuters.
The decision is seen as a setback for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party, which has been the largest beneficiary of the system it introduced in 2017.
The system, called Electoral Bonds, was challenged by opposition members and a civil society group on grounds that it hindered the public's right to know who had given money to political parties.
The Supreme Court brought reinstated corporate donation limits, saying that treating companies and individuals alike for this was "manifestly arbitrary".
"The ability of a company to influence the electoral process through political contributions is much higher when compared to that of an individual... contributions made by companies are purely business transactions made with the intent of securing benefits in return," the court wrote.