the Supreme Court judgement of 1995 (Common Cause versus the Union of India and others) in which the court directed that political parties had to file income tax returns, and that the Election Commission, under Article 324, could ask parties to submit their election expense accounts to it for scrutiny. Since then, the Election Commission has been obtaining detailed election expenses of recognized political parties for all general elections to the Lok Sabha and elections to legislative assemblies. These details are put in the public domain through the Commission’s website.
