New Delhi: The State Bank of India (SBI) on Tuesday submitted the data of Electoral Bonds to the Election Commission of India (ECI), complying with the Supreme Court’s stern order issued on Monday, the poll panel said.
India Today TV quoting sources reported that details of the sale and purchase of electoral bonds shared by the SBI are in a raw form that reveals who bought bonds worth how much and in favour of which political party.
The data shared by the State Bank of India is being uploaded in a phased manner, with plans to release it all together on the evening of March 15, sources added.
A top court bench, headed by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud, rejected SBI’s plea seeking an extension of time and ordered it to disclose the details of electoral bonds to the Election Commission by close of business hours on March 12.
The Supreme Court has also directed the poll panel to publish the details of the electoral bonds on its official website by 5 pm on March 15.
Thrashing its plea seeking an extension of time to disclose the electoral bonds data, the Supreme Court came down heavily on SBI for “willful disobedience” of order, and warned it of contempt proceedings.
During yesterday’s hearing, the bank argued that process of gathering, cross-verifying, and disclosing the data, stored in two separate “silos” for maintaining confidentiality on both ends, would be a time-consuming task. “We need a little more time to comply. We were told this is supposed to be a secret,” SBI said, seeking time till June 30 to submit the details.
To which, the top court highlighted that donor details were accessible at the SBI’s Mumbai branch, and the bank only needed to “open covers, collate details, and provide information”.
“We had not directed the bank to match the details of donors and donee with other information. The SBI has to just open the sealed cover, collate the details and give the information to the Election Commission,” Chief Justice told the bank.
The introduction of electoral bonds was aimed to replace cash donations to political parties, seeking to improve transparency in political funding. Notably, SBI has issued Electoral Bonds worth Rs 16,518 crore in 30 tranches since the inception of the scheme in 2018.
However, the Supreme Court, in a landmark judgment last month, held the electoral bond scheme to be “unconstitutional” and said it violated citizens’ right to information.
