Government Cleared Printing Of Rs 10K Crore Electoral Bonds Days Before Supreme Court Order: Report

Correspondence between the State Bank of India and the Finance Ministry has revealed that just three days before the Supreme Court struck down the electoral bond scheme as unconstitutional, the Finance Ministry had given its final nod for the printing of 10,000 electoral bonds worth Rs 1 crore each by the Security Printing and Minting Corporation of India (SPMCIL).

However, following the apex court’s decision on February 28, the Finance Ministry directed the State Bank of India (SBI) to halt the printing process immediately.

Under the Right to Information Act, The Indian Express discovered that the SPMCIL had already printed and dispatched 8,350 bonds to SBI by the time the directive to stop printing was issued. The information from emails and correspondences between the Finance Ministry and the SBI revealed the details.

The decision to stop printing was conveyed through a trail-mail titled “Hold on Printing of Electoral Bonds—Electoral Bond Scheme 2018” dated February 28 from SBI to SPMCIL. The Assistant General Manager of SBI’s Transaction Banking Department noted that they have acknowledged the receipt of four boxes of security forms of electoral bonds, which totaled 8,350 bonds, via email dated February 23. “As in the light of the judgement given by the Honourable Supreme Court, we request you to put a hold on the printing of the remaining 1,650 Electoral Bonds for which approval had been given,” said the bank’s Assistant General Manager.

Further details from the correspondence revealed that the order initially was for printing 400 booklets and 10,000 electoral bonds, with the Government of India’s approval for placing the order granted on February 12.

The halt on printing came through another email on the same day from the Finance Ministry’s Budget section to SBI and other relevant departments, urging SBI to communicate immediately with SPMCIL to cease printing the remaining 1,650 electoral bonds.

Notably, since the inception of the electoral bond scheme, a total of 22,217 electoral bonds have been redeemed. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led in encashments worth Rs 8,451 crore, followed by the Congress with Rs 1,950 crore, the Trinamool Congress (TMC) with Rs 1,707.81 crore, and Bharat Rashtra Samithi (former Telangana Rashtra Samithi) with Rs 1,407.30 crore.