Supreme Court Pulls Up SBI For Delaying Electoral Bond Details, Sets Deadline For Tomorrow

The Supreme Court of India on Monday dismissed the State Bank of India’s request for an extension to disclose details of electoral bonds and ordered the bank to furnish the details by March 12, 2024. Further, the court directed the Election Commission of India to compile the information on its official website no later than 5:00 p.m. on March 15.

The top court noted that contributors under this scheme were required to submit a KYC form and proof of payment through cheque or a demand draft. Therefore, the details of the contributors are readily available with the SBI, the court said.

The apex court questioned India’s biggest public sector bank, the State Bank of India, after its advocate, Harish Salve, told the apex court that they needed more time to furnish the sought data regarding electoral bonds.

“The problem is that I have to take out the details of each purchaser, and this in turn will have to be correlated to the redemption details of political parties, and all this will have to be done physically as none of this information is in the bank's central database,” Salve told the court.

Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud observed that SBI had been asked for a plain disclosure and added, “We have not asked you to undertake a decoding exercise.” He added that “for every purchase, you had to have a separate KYC. Therefore, you have the details.”

In essence, the court said that details of the contributors and redemption details pertaining to political parties need not be bridged and that a separate disclosure will suffice.

Justice BR Gavai and Justice Sanjiv Khanna also questioned the extension request, saying all the requested information was already available.

A five-judge constitution bench headed by the Chief Justice was also hearing a separate plea, which sought the initiation of contempt action against the SBI, alleging it 'wilfully and deliberately' disobeyed the apex court's direction to submit details of the contributions made to political parties through electoral bonds to the Election Commission by March 6.

The court said that it was not inclined to exercise the contempt jurisdiction as of now. If, however, the bank fails to comply with the court's order to submit the information by tomorrow, the court may initiate a contempt of court action against it.

Last month, the top court, in a unanimous ruling, struck down the electoral bond scheme as unconstitutional.

The electoral bond scheme is violative of the right to information and the right to freedom of speech and expression provided under Article 19(1)(a), a five-judge constitution bench headed by Chief Justice Chandrachud ruled.

Consequently, the court had directed the State Bank of India to furnish the electoral bond data to the Election Commission of India by March 6 of this month, which in turn was supposed to make the data public by March 13.

However, citing certain 'practical difficulties' with the decoding exercise and the timeline fixed for it, SBI sought an extension of the March 6 deadline until June 30.

In its plea, SBI said that since stringent measures were undertaken to ensure and maintain the anonymity of the donors, “decoding” the electoral bond data and matching the donations with the donors would be a complex process.

In the backdrop of SBI's plea for an extension, the Association for Democratic Reforms filed a contempt of court application against the public sector bank, alleging that SBI's plea had been filed with a mala fide intention, which demonstrates a wilful and deliberate disobedience of the top court's order.