In Supreme Court tomorrow, SBI seeks submission of poll bond information

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New Delhi:

The Supreme Court will on Monday hear an application filed by the State Bank of India (SBI) seeking extension to June 30 to disclose details of every electoral bond encashed by political parties before the scheme was scrapped last month.

A five-judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud will also hear a separate plea seeking contempt of court proceedings against SBI, alleging that SBI “willfully and willfully” violated the Supreme Court’s directions by submitting donation details to the Supreme Court. information. Political parties submit electoral bonds to the Election Commission before March 6.

The Supreme Court bench, also comprising Justices Sanjiv Khanna, BR Gavai, JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, will assemble at 10.30 am to hear the two petitions.

In a landmark ruling on February 15, a five-judge Constitution bench struck down the Centre’s electoral bonds scheme that allowed anonymous political funding, calling it “unconstitutional” and ordered the Election Commission to disclose donations donor, the amount of their donation and the recipients received by March 13th.

The Supreme Court then directed SBI, the authorized financial institution under the scheme, to submit details of electoral bonds purchased from April 12, 2019 to date, to the Election Commission by March 6 and asked the Election Commission to publish the information on its official website . Website prior to March 13th.

On March 4, the SBI moved the Supreme Court seeking an extension to June 30 for the details of electoral bonds to be encashed by political parties.

The SBI believes that the process of retrieving information from “each silo” and matching information from one silo to another will be a time-consuming exercise.

“Decoding” electoral bonds and matching donors to donations would be a complex process due to strict measures to ensure donors’ identities remain anonymous, the filing said.

“It submitted that data relating to bond issuance and data relating to bond redemption are recorded in two different silos. No central database is maintained. This is done to ensure that the anonymity of donors is protected,” it said .

“It is learned that the details of the donors were kept in designated branch seals and all these seals were kept at the main branch of the applicant bank in Mumbai,” the report said.

Later, a separate petition was filed in the Supreme Court seeking initiation of contempt proceedings against SBI for alleged non-compliance with the Supreme Court order.

The contempt plea filed by the NGO Association for Democratic Reforms and Common Cause said the SBI’s application seeking extension of time was deliberately filed at the last minute to ensure that donor details and donations were not disclosed to the public ahead of the upcoming elections. amount. Lok Sabha elections.

“It is submitted that the said application is made with mala fides and shows willful and willful disobedience and contempt for the judgment passed by the Constitutional Bench of this Court. This is a clear attempt to undermine the authority of this Court,” the statement said.

“The petitioner hereby files an instant petition seeking initiation of contempt proceedings against State Bank of India for willful and willful violation of the order passed by this court on February 15… wherein this court directed SBI to submit details of donations to political banks Information. Parties by filing electoral bonds before March 6 with the Election Commission of India,” the contempt plea said.

It said that under Section 7 of the Electoral Bond Scheme, information provided by the buyer can be disclosed when requested by the competent court.

“As per Section 12(4) of the scheme, electoral bonds have to be encashed within fifteen days, failing which the unencashed bond amount will be deposited by the bank into the Prime Minister’s Relief Fund. Therefore, SBI cannot encash without record information readily available in its database,” it explain.

The petition said the electoral bonds are “fully traceable”, as evidenced by the fact that the SBI maintains secret digital records of donors who purchased the bonds and the political parties to which they donated.

The contempt plea said any form of anonymity in party finances was contrary to the essence of participatory democracy and the people’s right to information enshrined in Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution.

It said the availability of information on electoral bonds would give voters the opportunity to truly examine, express and decide on their choices.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)