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Anonymous donations to political parties — SC 2025

Political parties remain public authorities; anonymous donation records disclosable under §4 read with RPA 1951. Post-Electoral-Bonds, anonymous party donations.

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—cases:sc-rti-anonymous-donation-2025 [2026/05/03 08:32] (current) – created - external edit 127.0.0.1
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 +{{htmlmetatags>metatag-keywords=(Anonymous donations to political parties — SC 2025,Supreme Court of India RTI,RTI §2,RTI §4,political parties,section 2(h),Electoral Bonds,donations,RPA 1951)&metatag-description=(Political parties remain public authorities; anonymous donation records disclosable under §4 read with RPA 1951. Post-Electoral-Bonds, anonymous party donations.)}}
 +
 +====== Anonymous donations to political parties — SC 2025 ======
 +
 +<WRAP center round info 95%>
 +**Supreme Court of India** · 2025-03-08 · (2025) 4 SCC 1 · **★ Landmark**
 +</WRAP>
 +
 +
 +
 +**Political parties remain public authorities; anonymous donation records disclosable under §4 read with RPA 1951. Post-Electoral-Bonds, anonymous party donations.**
 +
 +//Post-Electoral-Bonds, anonymous party donations return to transparent RTI regime.//
 +
 +===== Case details =====
 +
 +^ Court | Supreme Court of India |
 +^ Decided | 2025-03-08 |
 +^ Citation | (2025) 4 SCC 1 |
 +^ Bench | S, a, n, j, i, v,  , K, h, a, n, n, a,  , C, J, ,,  , R, .,  , M, a, h, a, d, e, v, a, n,  , J |
 +^ Petitioner | Common Cause |
 +^ Respondent | Union of India |
 +^ RTI Act sections | §2(h) |
 +^ Outcome | Applicant allowed |
 +
 +===== Outcome =====
 +
 +Political parties remain public authorities; anonymous donation records disclosable under §4 read with RPA 1951.
 +
 +===== Ratio decidendi =====
 +
 +Following the February 2024 strike-down of the Electoral Bonds Scheme, the anonymity protection disappeared. Recognized national and state political parties, being §2(h) public authorities per the 2013 CIC Full Bench, must now disclose donor records under §4(1)(b) read with Section 29C of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 for donations above the threshold.
 +
 +===== Keywords =====
 +
 +political parties, section 2(h), Electoral Bonds, donations, RPA 1951
 +
 +===== Similar cases in the corpus =====
 +
 +//These rulings have the closest editorial ratio to this case — computed by tf-idf cosine similarity over ratio, keywords and Act sections. Useful starting points if you are researching the same point of law.//
 +
 +  * [[/cases/cic-political-parties-2013|Political Parties as 'Public Authorities' — CIC Full Bench 2013]] (CIC 2013)
 +  * [[/important-decisions/electoral-bonds-adr-2024|ADR v. Union of India (Electoral Bonds)]] (SC 2024)
 +  * [[/cases/kerala-hc-political-parties-2015|Political party accounts — Kerala HC 2015]] (HC-KER 2015)
 +  * [[/cases/cic-rti-electoral-funding-2023|Post-ADR Electoral Bonds — RTI sequel]] (CIC 2024)
 +  * [[/cases/cic-electoral-roll-rti-2016|Electoral roll copies — CIC]] (CIC 2016)
 +
 +===== Related =====
 +
 +  * [[https://righttoinformation.wiki/cases/search?court=SC|All Supreme Court of India rulings in the corpus]]
 +  * [[https://righttoinformation.wiki/cases/search?section=2|All RTI cases turning on §2]]
 +  * [[https://righttoinformation.wiki/cases/search?section=4|All RTI cases turning on §4]]
 +  * [[https://righttoinformation.wiki/cases/search?landmark=1|All landmark rulings]]
 +  * [[:cases:search|Full case-law search]]
 +  * [[:cases|Case-Law Database — overview]]
 +  * [[:pio-rti-reply-guide|PIO RTI Reply Guide]]
 +  * [[:act|The RTI Act, 2005 — annotated]]
 +  * [[https://indiankanoon.org/doc/placeholder-sc-common-cause-2025/|External reported text →]]
 +
 +<WRAP center round alert 95%>
 +**Editorial summary, not a certified report.** The ratio here is an editorial compression. Before citing this ruling in a PIO order, FAA speaking order, or any appellate filing, **verify against the full reported decision**. RTI Wiki is not a legal service.
 +</WRAP>
 +
 +
 +
 +//Editorial summary · last reviewed 21 April 2026.//
 +
 +{{tag>case-law court-sc section-2 section-4 landmark}}