SC Agrees To Examine Plea Against Unregulated Use Of Money Power By Political Parties For Elections
A bench led by CJI Surya Kant issued notice on petition challenging unlimited party funding in elections, questioning how such spending can be constitutionally regulated.
By Sumit Saxena
Published : February 26, 2026 at 2:53 PM IST
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday agreed to examine a plea against the unregulated use of money power by political parties for election purposes and stressed that the unbridled use of money power in elections must be stopped.
The matter came up before a bench comprising Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and justices Joymalya Bagchi and Vipul Pancholi.
Advocate Prashant Bhushan, representing the NGO Common Cause, said this is an issue that goes to the root of our democracy: the unregulated use of money power by political parties for election purposes.
Bhushan said that today, under the law, there is a limit on the expenditure of individual candidates, though that limit is not enforced very often because people spend in cash.
Justice Bagchi said there is something beyond Bhushan's proposal and cited the US elections. He said that there are spending limits for a party, and when that limit is reached, a pact is created among a candidate's friends.
“Let us say an Indian-American pact will fund you, where is the limit?” asked Justice Bagchi, and orally observed that friends of a political party will fund.
Justice Bagchi told Bhushan that if there is no funding beyond the X limit, then he will come before the court saying Article 19 (1) (a) freedom of expression and expression through material support, and asked, “How will we control that?”
Bhushan argued that Parliament put a restriction on candidates. The bench replied that now he wants that restriction to be enlarged to the political party, to which Bhushan agreed. The bench asked, “Will that be sufficient?”
Bhushan said that if I spend money on a candidate, it is normally calculated in their election expenditure, but if a political party spends, that is not calculated, and unfortunately, there is no limit on a political party regarding the maximum it can spend in a year.
“This court in the electoral bonds (case) had said in a large number of paragraphs that this is a scourge. This is a huge problem, and it is skewing our electoral democracy. There is unbridled use of money and power by political parties in elections, etc., and this needs to be stopped. Needs to be curbed”, argued Bhushan.
After hearing submissions, the bench issued notice on the plea and is likely to take up the matter after 6 weeks.
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