The Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) is an apolitical, non-partisan non-profit organization, or institution, established in 1999 by a group of professors from the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Ahmedabad. It was created to address the problem of a lack of transparency in the electoral process, specifically the absence of public information regarding the background of candidates contesting elections.
The ADR's origin is deeply connected to a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) it filed in 1999 with the Delhi High Court, which sought the disclosure of the criminal, financial, and educational background of election candidates. This legal action led to the landmark Supreme Court judgment in Union of India v. Association for Democratic Reforms (2002), where the Court ruled that the voter's "right to know" about candidates is a fundamental right, flowing from Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution (freedom of speech and expression). The ratio of the judgment was that the Election Commission of India must make it mandatory for all candidates contesting elections to Parliament and State Assemblies to file a self-sworn affidavit (Form 26) disclosing their criminal, financial, and educational background.
The ADR works primarily through its flagship program, Election Watch, which involves analyzing the affidavits filed by candidates and making this data publicly available, often through its open-data platform, MyNeta.info. It also runs the Political Party Watch program, which analyzes the financial declarations, income, expenditure, and donations of political parties to push for greater accountability and transparency.
The organization is connected to the Representation of the People Act, 1951, as its work ensures the effective implementation of disclosure requirements under this law, and it frequently uses the Right to Information Act to obtain financial data of political parties. Most recently, the ADR was the lead petitioner in the Supreme Court case Association For Democratic Reforms vs Union Of India (2024), where the Court unanimously struck down the Electoral Bonds Scheme as unconstitutional, ruling that the scheme violated the voters' right to information under Article 19(1)(a). This judgment replaced the anonymous political funding mechanism of the Electoral Bonds Scheme with a requirement for the disclosure of all donor and recipient details.