SBI refuses to disclose details of electoral bonds under RTI Act

State Bank of India (SBI) refuses to disclose details of electoral bonds under RTI Act

New Delhi:

State Bank of India (SBI) has refused to disclose details of electoral bonds given to the Election Commission (EC) under the RTI Act, claiming that it was personal information held in a trustee capacity, even though the records are maintained with the State Bank of India (SBI). Public domain on the poll panel website.

The Supreme Court found the electoral bonds scheme “unconstitutional and manifestly arbitrary” and on February 15 directed the SBI to provide the Election Commission with complete details of the bonds purchased since April 12, 2019, which will be published on its website Information by March 13th.

On March 11, the court dismissed SBI’s petition seeking extension of the deadline and ordered it to disclose details of electoral bonds to the Election Commission before the close of business on March 12.

RTI activist Commodore (retd) Lokesh Batra had approached the SBI on March 13, seeking complete data on electoral bonds in digital form, which were provided to the EC following the Supreme Court order.

The bank denied the information citing two exemptions under the Right to Information (RTI) Act: Section 8(1)(e) relating to records held in a trustee capacity, Section 8(1) Clause (j) allows for the withholding of tax on personal information.

“The information you seek contains details of the purchaser and political party and therefore cannot be disclosed as the information is held in a fiduciary capacity and the information is not available under Section 8(1)(e) and (j) of the RTI Act. Disclosure may be exempted,” the Central Public Information Officer and SBI Deputy General Manager responded on Wednesday.

Mr Batra also sought details of the fees paid by the SBI to senior counsel Harish Salve to defend against the disclosure of electoral bond records on the grounds that the records were held in a trust capacity and the information was personal in nature. .

Mr Batra told PTI that it was “bizarre” for the SBI to deny information already on the Election Commission’s website.

On the issue of Salve’s fees, he said the bank denied information involving taxpayer funds.

The EC published data provided by SBI on its website on March 14, which contained details of donors and political parties that redeemed bonds.

On March 15, the Supreme Court dismissed the SBI’s charge that it had failed to provide complete information and withheld unique numbers for each electoral bond that helped match donors to recipient parties, saying the bank ” have a duty” to disclose this information. information.

A five-judge bench headed by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud said it has directed disclosure of all details of the bonds, including name of the purchaser, amount and date of purchase.

The CJI observed that all details had to be provided by SBI as the court warned the bank for providing incomplete information a day after the European Commission published the full list of entities that purchased the bonds for political donations.

SBI said that between April 1, 2019, and February 15 this year, donors purchased a total of 22,217 electoral bonds of various denominations, of which 22,030 were redeemed by political parties.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)