The lucknow bench of Allahabad High Court clarified that the issue of foreign funding by political parties including the Congress and the BJP came under the ambit of Public Interest litigation (PIl).
The court took up the matter seriously on Monday when a PIl was filed by social activist and member of Aam Aadmi Party Nutan Thakur, who wanted to know the sources of foreign contributions to Congress, BJP and other parties.
Earlier the Centre had on the directions of Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde instituted a probe against AAP’s foreign contributions. The AAP member Nutan Thakur had moved this application previously following which AAP had declared to its donors that the party had fulfilled its target of `20 crore funds required to contest Assembly polls in New Delhi.
Regarding the second PIl filed by Thakur on Monday, the Court set up a two- member bench comprising Justices Devi Prasad Singh and Ashok Pal Singh observed that the matter is not only related to the petitioner, but has a wider public ramifications and therefore admitted the PIl.
They directed the matter would be heard on November 20 by the PIl bench. The petition called the Home Ministry’s action against ‘AAP’ one-sided, because on October 26, 2012, Dr Thakur had sent a complaint to the Home Ministry regarding the Election Commission directive to probe the alleged violation of the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act, 2010 by Congress and BJP by receiving donations of about `5 crore each from Vedanta Group subsidiaries — Sterlite Industries and Sesa Goa — but no action had been taken so far on these complaints.
Hence, she prayed for the enquiry to cover all political parties, including Congress and BJP as regards every foreign contribution received by them.