Poll body seeks amendment to electoral bonds order, Supreme Court hears today

EC has urged the Supreme Court to correct or amend parts of the March 11 order

The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear a petition filed by the Election Commission on Friday seeking modification of the operative part of its March 11 order in the electoral bonds case.

The order states that copies of sealed documents submitted to the Supreme Court during the hearings should be kept at the Election Commission office, the poll panel said. The European Commission said it did not retain any copies of the documents, adding that they may be returned to comply with the court’s instructions.

A separate petition filed by the NGO Association for Democratic Reforms challenging the exclusion of the Chief Justice of India from the panel of chief election commissioner and election commissioner is also scheduled to be heard on Friday.

However, the matter was not listed on Friday’s business listing on the Supreme Court’s website.

On March 12, a bench headed by Justice Sanjiv Khanna told lawyer Prashant Bhushan, representing the NGO, that the plea to exclude the CJI from the selection panel would be heard on Friday.

In the electoral bonds case, the Supreme Court on March 11 directed the State Bank of India (SBI) to disclose the details of the bonds to the European Commission before the close of business on March 12.

The poll panel said in the fresh application that the Supreme Court in its March 11 order had stated that “a copy of the declaration submitted by the ECI before this court will be kept at the office of the ECI”.

“It is respectfully stated that in pursuance of the order passed by this Court and in order to maintain confidentiality of the above information/data, the Election Commission of India forwards the documents received before it to this Court in a sealed cover/box without retaining any Copy,” the application states.

“Consequently, copies of the documents/statements submitted by the Election Commission of India before this court in this case have never been retained,” it said.

In its application, the European Commission urged the Supreme Court to correct or amend parts of the March 11 order and return sealed documents, data or information it submitted to the court to enable the polling panel to comply. As directed by the court.

The application stated that as per the directives passed by the Supreme Court on April 12, 2019 and November 2 last year, the European Commission has provided the required information/data including sealed lids (containing 106 sealed envelopes) and sealed boxes (respectively Contains 309 and 214 sealed envelopes).

On April 12, 2019, the Supreme Court issued an interim order directing political parties to submit information on donations received and donations to be received to the Election Commission in a sealed manner.

A five-judge constitution bench headed by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud is scheduled to hear the EC’s application on Friday.

In its order on March 11, the Supreme Court dismissed SBI’s plea seeking an extension and ordered it to disclose the details of the electoral bonds to the EC before the close of business on March 12.

The court also directed the EC to publish the details shared by the bank on its official website by 5 pm on March 15.

The Electoral Commission published the electoral bond data on its website on Thursday, a day before the deadline.

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