SBI urges extension of March 6 deadline from SC to disclose details of electoral bonds
With hardly a day left to submit details of Electoral Bonds to the Election Commission, the State Bank of India (SBI) approached the Supreme Court, seeking more time needed to furnish the details. On February 15, the Supreme Court in a landmark judgment scrapped the Electoral Bonds and directed SBI to submit all details of Electoral Bonds to the Election Commission by March 6. The Election Commission was directed to publish all these details in the public domain by March 13. Now through a new application, SBI sought time till June 30 to submit details to the Election Commission.
On Monday evening, the SBI filed an application before the apex court seeking more time to furnish the details of donors and receivers of electoral bonds to the Election Commission by March 6. SBI excused in its affidavit that it needed time till June 30, as it had to compile 44,434 information sets of electoral bonds. “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”, said SBI in the affidavit seeking more time.
SBI has now stated that re-matching the data would be a task requiring a significant amount of effort. “In order to make available donor information, the date of issue of each bond will have to be checked and matched against the date of purchase by a particular donor. This exercise would only deal with the first silo of information. These Bonds were redeemed by the Political Parties in their designated Bank accounts. Accordingly, this information would then have to be matched against the bond redemption information that makes up the second silo,” claimed SBI, seeking time up to June 30.
“As expected, the Modi govt has filed an application through State Bank seeking time till beyond elections to disclose names of donors thru #Electoral Bonds to political parties. The release of this info will reveal several bribe givers & Contracts/ favours to them. So scared!,” said the main petitioner and noted lawyer Prashant Bhushan, uploading the SBI’s affidavit seeking more time.
As expected, Modi govt has filed an application thru State Bank seeking time till beyond elections to disclose name of donors thru #ElectoralBonds to political parties. The release of this info will reveal several bribe givers & Contracts/favours to them. So scared! pic.twitter.com/q34nzFyY2q
— Prashant Bhushan (@pbhushan1) March 4, 2024
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