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Political finance · Environment · Public finance · Delhi · English, Hindi

Nitin Sethi

Founder and trustee, The Reporters' Collective · New Delhi

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Nitin Sethi led the 2019 investigation into India's electoral bonds scheme, built on documents obtained through RTI by Commodore Lokesh Batra. The series showed that the government had overruled the Reserve Bank of India's objections and that State Bank of India kept records that could identify donors. The Supreme Court struck the scheme down in February 2024. He went on to found The Reporters' Collective, a non-profit investigative newsroom.

The electoral bonds reporting is a reference case for document-driven accountability journalism in India: it relied on official correspondence obtained under the Right to Information Act rather than anonymous sourcing, and its central findings were later borne out in the Supreme Court’s record.

Defining work

Electoral Bonds: The Great Fraud (series)2019 · HuffPost India
Electoral bonds investigations, part 7: corporations need protection from citizens2024 · The Reporters' Collective
A wider net than electoral bonds2024 · The Reporters' Collective

Recognition

ACJ Award for Investigative Journalism2020

Sources

  1. huffpost.com — https://www.huffpost.com/archive/in/entry/electoral-bonds-investigation-modi-gov…
  2. reporters-collective.in — https://www.reporters-collective.in/trc/wider-net-than-electoral-bonds
  3. gijn.org — https://gijn.org/stories/india-independent-news-investigating-key-election-year/

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