The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed a batch of pleas seeking a court-monitored Special Investigation Team (SIT) probe into the now-scrapped electoral bonds scheme. The petitions reportedly demanded SIT investigation into the alleged instances of quid pro quo arrangements between corporates and political parties through Electoral Bonds donations.
In a landmark verdict on February 15, a five-judge constitution bench of the apex court had scrapped the Centre's electoral bonds scheme of anonymous political funding, calling it "unconstitutional" and ordered disclosure by the Election Commission of the donors, the amount donated by them and the recipients by March 13.
Days after the Supreme Court scrapped the electoral bonds, the State Bank Of India (SBI) came under fire for seeking an extension of time till June 30 to give information to the Election Commission of India (ECI) about the scheme.
Rejecting the plea by SBI for more time to release Electoral Bonds info, the Supreme Court on March 8 instructed the bank to disclose details by March 12. The Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud also directed the Election Commission of India (ECI) to publish the details shared by the bank on its official website by 5 pm on March 15.
During the hearing, the bench, also comprising Justices Sanjiv Khanna, BR Gavai, JB Pardiwala, and Manoj Misra, took note of the submissions of senior advocate Harish Salve, appearing for the SBI, that more time was needed for collating the details and matching them as the information were kept in two different silos with its branches.
On March 12, the ECI took to microblogging platform X (formerly Twitter) and confirmed through a post that SBI had submitted the data in compliance with the Supreme Court order
"In compliance of Hon’ble Supreme Court's directions to the SBI, contained in its order dated Feb 15 & March 11, 2024 (in the matter of WPC NO.880 of 2017), data on electoral bonds has been supplied by State Bank of India to Election Commission of India, today, March 12, 2024," the post read.
The details of electoral bonds (EB) were then on March 15 made public by the Election Commission, revealing the list of entities which purchased EBs to make political donations to parties.
In the list, that included bigwigs of the corporate world like Bharti Airtel and DLF, possibly the biggest donor was a little-known lottery company called Future Gaming and Hotel Services.
The other better known names included steel tycoon Anil Agarwal's Vedanta, ITC, Mahindra and Mahindra, DLF, PVR, Birlas, Bajajs, Jindals, Spicejet, IndiGo and the Goenkas.
Future Gaming and Hotel Services purchased possibly the highest amount of bonds worth Rs 1,368 crore, followed by Megha Engineering and Infrastructure Ltd at Rs 966 crore. Future Gaming was probed by the Enforcement Directorate in March 2022.
