Taking a stern view on the issue, the Supreme Court directed the State Bank of India (SBI) to submit all details on Electoral Bonds before the Election Commission by March 12 before “close of business hours”, and the poll panel has been directed to publish the same on its website no later than March 15.
Dismissing SBI’s plea, the SC put the SBI’s chairman and managing director on notice and warned them of contempt for failure to comply with today’s orders. “Though we are not exercising the contempt jurisdiction, but we place SBI on notice that this court will proceed against it for wilful disobedience of court if it does not adhere to the directions issued by the court,” the top court’s order said.
However, to simplify things, the Supreme Court told the SBI it could submit details on the purchaser and the denomination of the bonds bought separate from the bonds encashed by the political parties. Supreme Court said SBI need not go through with the matching exercise (connecting the purchaser to donation to which political party) – the reason it needed time till June 30.
The top court observed SBI’s submissions in its application indicated that “the information sought is readily available”. “Thus, SBI’s application for more time until June 30 is dismissed,” Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud said.
On February 15, the Supreme Court struck down the electoral bond scheme calling it unconstitutional, and directed the nation’s largest bank to furnish details of the same by March 6. The Election Commission was then required to upload the details on its website by March 13.
What have you done in the past 26 days? SC to SBI
On March 4, days before the top court-imposed deadline, SBI moved the Supreme Court seeking time till June 30 to comply with the February 15 verdict to furnish all details on Electoral Bonds.
The information on donors, and bonds encashed by political parties is available but in two different silos, senior advocate Harish Salve said while representing SBI. “We are trying to collate the information and we are having to reverse the entire process. We as a bank were told that this is supposed to be a secret,” Salve told the five-judge Constitution bench.
In its petition, SBI submitted: “There is a large number of data sets to decipher and a total of 22,217 bonds were purchased between April 2019 to Feb 2024 and this will lead to 44,000 plus data sets since there are two silos of info and thus compilation will be a time-consuming process.”
However, the top court was not convinced by SBI’s argument. "We never asked you to do any matching. We simply asked you to submit the details," SC told SBI.
The five-judge constitution bench led by CJI DY Chandrachud asked the national bank on what steps it has taken to collate the data since the judgment was delivered. “In the past 26 days since the judgment came, how much work have you done on the matching exercise? The affidavit is absolutely silent on this,” the bench asked SBI. From what we understand, you have no difficulty in giving the names of purchasers and political parties; the only difficulty is in matching the data, the top court asked.
The court further noted that the required details are readily available with the SBI. “Directions of this court requires SBI to disclose info which is already available with it. The FAQs on electoral bonds state that the KYC documents must be submitted by the purchaser each time that the bond is purchased irrespective of that purchaser has a KYC verified purchaser account. Thus, details of EB purchased and directed to be disclosed is readily available,” the order noted.
The court further noted that political parties could only have one current account in any one of the four authorized branches where it could encash the bonds. “Thus, details of the information of EB encashed by political parties will be available in these four branches and the slips will have to be deposited with the main bank and this process was followed,” the court observed.
