SC To Hear SBI Plea On Extension Of Date In Electoral Bonds Case On Mar 11

New Delhi: A five-judge bench of the Supreme Court will hear the plea filed by the State Bank of India (SBI) in connection with the electoral bond donor details on March 11.

The SBI had sought an extension of the deadline till June 30 to disclose details of each electoral bond encashed by political parties.

Apart from the plea seeking the extension of the deadline, the Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud will also hear a separate petition which has sought initiation of contempt action against the bank in the same case, news agency PTI reported.

The Supreme Court, in a landmark judgment on February 15, scrapped the Centre’s electoral bonds scheme that allowed anonymous funding for political parties, calling the policy ‘unconstitutional’. The bench of the highest court also ordered the disclosure of all the donors by the EC as well as the amount donated and the recipients by March 15.

Ordering closure of the scheme forthwith, the top court had directed the SBI, the authorised financial institution under the scheme, to submit the details of the electoral bonds purchased since April 12, 2019 till date to the EC by March 6. The Commission was asked to publish the information on its official website by March 13.

However, the SBI moved the Supreme Court on March 4, seeking an extension of the deadline till June 30 to disclose the electoral bonds data. The bank said the procedure of retrieving and matching the information of “each silo” is a time-taking exercise.

After SBI filed its plea seeking an extension on the deadline, a separate plea was filed in the Supreme Court by NGOs Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and Common Cause, seeking the initiation of contempt proceedings against the bank for allegedly disobeying the top court.

The plea filed by ADR claimed that SBI’s application seeking an extension of time has been deliberately filed at the last moment to ensure that details of donor and the amount of donations are not disclosed to the public before the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.