Electoral bonds order: Among petitioners, Congress woman leader who wields PILs ‘to ensure justice’

One of the petitioners in the electoral bonds case, Congress leader and dental doctor Jaya Thakur dons many hats. If she regularly uploads dental care videos on her YouTube channel, the general secretary of the Madhya Pradesh Mahila Congress also keeps filing PILs in the Supreme Court, into issues ranging from allegations against the Adani Group to availability of sanitary pads for school students.

Thakur was a co-petitioner in the appeal seeking quashing of the electoral bonds scheme along with the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and CPI(M). A five-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court Thursday scrapped the scheme.

Fresh off the win, Thakur told The Indian Express that she decided to get involved as she felt the scheme was “harmful for democracy. “The electoral bonds scheme was not a transparent system… It could directly influence decisions taken by the government,” she said.

Having done dentistry from Bhopal, Thakur veered towards politics after marriage to Damoh-based Supreme Court lawyer Varun Thakur. “I was working in the field of girl education. My friends suggested I should join politics to bring about real change. Politics was a better platform to help people,” she says.

However, more than the political field, it is in the courtroom that Thakur has made an impact, through multiple appeals in a range of cases.

In 2022, she moved the Supreme Court challenging the extension of tenure granted to the Director of the Enforcement Directorate (ED), Sanjay Kumar Mishra, saying repeated extensions destroy democratic processes in the country. The same year, she filed a review petition in the Supreme Court against its order upholding the Centre’s decision to provide 10% reservation to economically weaker sections