SBI Seeks Time From Supreme Court To Disclose Electoral Bonds Details

New Delhi: The State Bank of India has moved Supreme Court seeking extension of time till June 30,2024, to disclose details of each electoral bond encashed by political parties.

The SBI was directed to submit details of electoral bonds issued since April 19 to the Election Commission of India (ECI) by March 6.

It contended that retrieval of information from “each silo” and the procedure of matching the information of one silo to that of the other would be a time-consuming exercise, adding that it had taken stringent measures to protect the identity of those who donated to political parties. “Due to the stringent measures undertaken to ensure that the identity of the donors was kept anonymous, “decoding” of the Electoral bonds and the matching of the donor to the donations made would be a complex process…details of purchases made at the Branches are not maintained centrally at any one place…was kept recorded in two different silos…This was done so as to ensure that donors’ anonymity would be protected,” the bank stated.

On February 15, a five-judge Constitution Bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud and Justices Sanjiv Khanna, BR Gavai, JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra unanimously quashed the Electoral Bonds Scheme.  While asking SBI to immediately stop the issue of Electoral Bonds, the apex court directed it to submit the details of the political parties that have received contributions through electoral bonds from April 12, 2019, till date to the ECI. It was also asked to disclose details of each electoral bond encashed by political parties, including the date of encashment and the denomination of the electoral bond, by March 6.

The ruling was perceived as a blow to the Bharatiya Janata Party which has been the primary beneficiary of the electoral bond system it implemented in 2017.