India, Feb. 26 -- Recently, the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu announced '5,000 in 1.31 crore women's accounts. In January 2026, the Supreme Court of India drew a clear line of demarcation for the first time between political freebies and welfare provisions. Speaking in response to a petition by Ashwini Kumar Upadhyaya, Chief Justice Surya Kant held that freebies could not be equated with welfare largesse by the state. The Supreme Court was found shifting its stance from the earlier judgement in the S Subramaniam Balaji versus Tamil Nadu case in 2013, which held that electoral promises in the form of freebies did not amount to bribery under Section 123 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951.

In this petition, the question before the...