The Supreme Court on Monday pulled up State Bank of India (SBI) for not disclosing all electoral bonds details, saying that the bank should not be selective in disclosing the details. The Supreme Court said it wants all information related to the Electoral Bonds, which is in SBI possession of, to be disclosed.
Senior advocate Harish Salve ,appearing for the SBI, told the Supreme Court that if the numbers of Electoral Bonds are to be given, they will give. "It should not seem that we are playing with court, senior advocate Harish Salve told the Supreme Court on Monday.
The apex court directed SBI to disclose all details of electoral bonds in its procession, including the unique alphanumeric number and the serial number, if any, of the bonds redeemed.
The Supreme Court directed SBI Chairman to file an affidavit by 5 pm, Thursday, March 21, indicating that SBI has disclosed all details of electoral bonds which were in its possession and custody and no details have been withheld. The top court said the Election Commission shall upload the details on its website forthwith upon receipt of information from the SBI.
Following a Supreme Court directive, the State Bank of India (SBI), which was the authorised seller of now-scrapped electoral bonds, had shared the data with the poll panel on March 12 after its plea for an extension of time to disclose details was rejected by the top court.
In a mega verdict delivered on February 15, a five-judge Constitution bench had scrapped the Centre's electoral bonds scheme that allowed anonymous political funding, calling it "unconstitutional" and ordered disclosure by the EC of donors, the amount donated by them and the recipients.
The Supreme Court had given the Election Commission time till 5 pm of March 15 to upload the data on its website.
The EC on March 14 released the details on 'Disclosure of Electoral Bonds Submitted by SBI' in two parts -- one listing the buyers and the other listing the beneficiary parties -- on its website a day before the court-mandated deadline.
Saying that the SBI did not disclosed the numbers of the electoral bonds (EB), which it had to do, the Supreme Court on Friday, March 15, ordered the bank to publish EB numbers which reveal the link between donors and political parties.
The top court had issued a notice to the SBI and sought a response by Monday, March 18.
The Supreme Court said that the judgment of the Constitution bench clarified that all details of electoral bonds will be made available including date of purchase, name of purchaser, and the denomination, adding that the SBI has not disclosed the electoral bonds - unique alphanumeric numbers.
Election Commission Releases More Data
The Election Commission of India on Sunday released more data as part of the disclosures of the data dump pertaining to a total of 523 recognised and non-recognised political parties made public by the poll body on the Supreme Court's orders.
According to the EC data released, top purchaser of electoral bonds Future Gaming and Hotel Services donated Rs 509 crore to Tamil Nadu's ruling party DMK through the now-scrapped payment mode.
The donations given by Future Gaming, whose owner, "lottery king" Santiago Martin, has been under the scanner of Enforcement Directorate (ED), accounted for more than 77 per cent of the total receipts from electoral bonds of Rs 656.5 crore disclosed by the DMK, a news agency PTI report mentioned.
The latest dataset released by the EC included scanned copies of the disclosures made by the political parties, running into hundreds of pages.
The data also revealed that the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) at the Centre received the maximum funds through electoral bonds at Rs 6,986.5 crore since they were introduced in 2018, followed by West Bengal's ruling party Trinamool Congress (Rs 1,397 crore), Congress (Rs 1,334 crore) and Bharat Rashtra Samithi (Rs 1,322 crore), according to the latest data shared by the EC.
