Solicitor General Tushar Mehta Tuesday told the Supreme Court, which began hearing the constitutional challenge against the electoral bonds scheme, that political affiliation forms the “inner core of a person’s private life” which the State is protecting through the poll bonds. “Political self-expression, either through voting or donations to one’s preferred party or candidate lies at the heart of the zone of privacy which the government is constitutionally obligated to respect,” Mehta stated in a 123-page note submitted to the Court. “It is submitted that given the sensitivity involved in expression of one’s political affiliation, there certainly lies a legitimate state interest in protecting the same and in providing reassurance to citizens that lawful expressions of such political affiliation would remain protected and the person concerned would have their privacy respected,” he stated. Mehta cited the 2017 landmark ruling KS Puttaswamy v Union of India in which the Supreme Court upheld the right to privacy as a fundamental right to argue that the State is protecting this right of the person making a donation to a political party through electoral bonds. “The political affiliation of any person is part of the ‘zone of privacy’ where the person concerned can claim a right against unwarranted intrusion. The right of the buyer to purchase bonds without having to disclose his preference of political party is in furtherance of his right to privacy, which has been recognized as a fundamental right,” he said. Mehta argued that this right of the donor has to be balanced against the ordinary citizen’s fundamental right to know which is also part of free speech. “Without prejudice, the right of a citizen to know how political parties are being funded must be balanced against the right of persons to maintain privacy of their political affiliations. It is submitted that no right can be absolute and unqualified and the right to know is no different,” he stated. Defending the anonymity of donors in the poll bonds scheme, Mehta said that the right to privacy encompasses a bundle of rights including the right to protect identity and anonymity. “Anonymity is where an individual seeks freedom from identification, even when and despite being in a public space,” he said. Attorney General R Venkataramani has told the Supreme Court that the citizen’s right to know is subject to reasonable restrictions.
