India National News

Electoral Bonds: SC Pulls Up SBI Again For Incomplete Data

The Supreme Court pulled up the State Bank of India on Thursday for not releasing the bond numbers in the electoral bonds data it submitted to the Election Commission of India.

This comes a day after the ECI made the data on electoral bonds public.

The Supreme Court was hearing a petition by the Election Commission where this matter came up. Finding the data provided by the State Bank of India was incomplete, Chief Justice DY Chandrachud-led five judge panel said its judgement and order were clear that all electoral bonds details had to be submitted to the ECI by the bank.

Appearing for petitioner Association for Democratic Reforms, Senior Advocate Prashant Bhushan, said the electoral bond numbers are crucial for tracing donors.

Earlier, Bhushan said that this aspect was implicit in the Supreme Court’s directive.

The SBI’s counsel wasn’t present in court today.

The Supreme Court has now issued a notice to SBI asking them to clarify this in the upcoming hearing on March 18.

Revealing electoral bond numbers could reveal connections between donors and political parties.

Introduced by the BJP government in 2018, electoral bonds enabled undisclosed donations, aiming to enhance transparency in political funding.

Last month, the Supreme Court invalidated the scheme, citing it as unconstitutional and expressing apprehensions about potential quid pro quo. The court ordered SBI to disclose all information regarding the acquisition and redemption of the bonds to the Election Commission.

As per the latest available data, the ECI has put out two files. First contains the list of over 1200 entities that bought these bonds. Second, the list of political parties that encashed these bonds.

A company called Future Company and Hotel Services was the biggest donor of electoral bonds, purchasing around Rs 1300 worth of bonds.

On the other hand, the BJP was the biggest beneficiary of elecotral bonds with around Rs 6000 crore

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