Monday, May 20

Electoral Bond Data: SBI Seeks Deadline Extension

Edited by Aishwarya Krishnan
Electoral Bond Data: SBI Seeks Deadline Extension

The State Bank of India (SBI) has filed an application in the Supreme Court, requesting an extension of time until June 30 to submit crucial information regarding Electoral Bonds to the Election Commission of India.

The sole issuing authority of electoral bonds, SBI, requested an extension of 116 days to furnish the details. If the top court approves the plea of extension until June 30, information regarding the whereabouts of political funding will only be known at the end of the Lok Sabha elections.

The move comes amidst a landmark judgement by the apex court on February 15, which annulled the electoral bonds scheme for political funding, citing violations of the constitutional right to freedom of speech and expression and the right to information.

The Supreme Court, in its ruling, had directed the state-run bank to disclose the details of donations made through electoral bonds and the names of political parties that received these contributions since April 2019 to the Election Commission by March 6. The Court also mandated the EC to publish the information shared by the bank on its official website by March 13.

In its application before the Court, SBI argued that retrieving information from different sources and the process of matching data would be a time-consuming task. The bank highlighted the complexity of “decoding” electoral bonds and matching donors to their contributions, emphasising that the data related to the issuance and redemption of the bonds were maintained separately in different silos without a central database. This meticulous arrangement was designed to protect the anonymity of donors, with donor details sealed and deposited at designated branches. According to the plea, all the sealed covers were stored in the Main Branch in Mumbai.

Chairman of the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), Professor Trilochan Shastry, said, “We are considering all options, including challenging the SBI plea in court,” as quoted in The Hindu. The collection of data, which is available in the digital format, from different States and locations cannot take four months “in this day and age,” he added.

RTI activist Anjali Bharadwaj, one of the petitioners, tweeted, “Donor names and redemption details of electoral bonds are both available in SBI’s Mumbai Branch in sealed cover as per their affidavit. Why is SBI not disclosing these immediately?”

The electoral bonds scheme, introduced by former Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in the Union Budget 2017-18, allowed citizens of India and domestic firms to donate bonds of varying denominations – Rs 1,000, Rs 10,000, Rs 1 lakh, Rs 10 lakh, and Rs 1 crore – to political parties of their choice.

However, a five-judge Constitution bench, led by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud, declared these unconstitutional, issuing a directive to SBI to disclose details of each electoral bond encashed by political parties to the Electoral Commission by March 6.