The Supreme Court
has denied State Bank of India (SBI)'s request for an extension to disclose
details of electoral bonds encashed by political parties since April 2019, to
June 30.
A five-judge
Constitution bench led by Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud with
Justices Sanjiv Khanna, BR Gavai, JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra passed the
judgement on Monday, ordering the bank to disclose details by March 12. The
Election Commission has been directed to publish this information by March 15.
The bench also
heard a plea to initiate action against SBI for contempt of court, as the bank
failed to meet the court's deadline.
The bank was set
a deadline of March 6 to disclose details to the Election Commission of India
(ECI) ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. The directions came after the electoral
bonds scheme was struck down on February 15. The apex court dubbed the scheme,
which allowed anonymous political funding, "unconstitutional" and ordered
SBI to disclose the donors' recipients and their respective donations made
since April 12, 2019.
SBI moved to the
top court on March 4, seeking an extension of this deadline till June 30 to
disclose details of electoral bonds encashed by political parties. The bank
cited the process of matching donations to donors as a complex process as
stringent measures had been undertaken to help maintain anonymity under the
scheme.
Representing SBI,
Senior Advocate Harish Salve argued that the bank needed additional time to
submit details of electoral bonds to the ECI, and that they did not want to
"make a mistake" in its documentation. Salve added that since the
system was meant to be anonymous, there were no names in the core system, as
KYC details were not stored digitally. Therefore, details on the donor and
recipient of purchase are in two different silos that require to be matched.
The SC responded
to the bank by stating that it had directed plain disclosure of donations and
not to conduct a "matching exercise." SC asked SBI what it had been
doing for the last 26 days and added that all donor details existed in the same
place.
CJI pointed to
Clause 7(4) of the electoral bonds scheme which stipulated that while electoral
bond purchasers would be treated with confidentiality by the authorised bank,
they "shall be disclosed when called upon to do so or registration of an
offence by a law enforcement agency." Thus, SBI was mandated to disclose
information when demanded.
Commenting on the Supreme Court's verdict, petitioner Jaya Thakur told ANI,
"Supreme Court understood the seriousness of the matter and issued strict
order for the bank (SBI) to submit all documents by tomorrow. I think this is a
great decision."