On Monday, the Supreme Court rejected the State Bank of India’s request to extend the deadline set by the court for providing details of electoral bonds encashed by political parties since April 12, 2019.
[Association for Democratic Reforms and Anr vs Union of India Cabinet Secretary and ors]
The court had originally set March 6 as the deadline, but the SBI sought an extension until June 30. However, a five-judge Constitution bench led by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, alongside Justices Sanjiv Khanna, BR Gavai, JB Pardiwala, and Manoj Misra, directed the SBI to disclose the details by the close of business hours on March 12.
The court highlighted that the information sought by the SBI is readily available, dismissing the plea for an extension. Additionally, the court cautioned the SBI against potential contempt of court if it fails to comply with the directive, putting it on notice for wilful disobedience.
The bench issued the order following the observation that the Electoral Bonds scheme, invalidated by the top court last month, explicitly stated that information provided by bond buyers should remain confidential until requested by law enforcement or upon the occurrence of an offense.
“Thus, the Electoral Bonds scheme mandates the SBI to disclose information when necessary,” the Court stated.
Moreover, the Court emphasized that the required details are already accessible to the SBI.
“The Court’s directive requires the SBI to disclose information readily available to it. The Frequently Asked Questions regarding electoral bonds specify that KYC documents must be submitted by purchasers with each transaction, regardless of whether they possess a KYC-verified purchaser account. Hence, the details of electoral bonds purchased and directed to be disclosed are readily accessible,” the order clarified.
Additionally, the Court noted that SBI’s published Frequently Asked Questions concerning the redemption of electoral bonds specify that each political party can only establish one current account for electoral bond redemption.
“The current account by the political party only in 4 authorised branches. Thus, details of info of EB encashed by political parties will be available in these 4 branches and the slips etc will have to be deposited with the main bank and this process was followed,” the bench observed while rejecting the plea.
The Court acknowledged SBI’s contention that deciphering electoral bonds and linking donors to recipients is a time-consuming process, with the information not stored in digital format.
Additionally, the Court took note of SBI’s submission regarding clause 7.1.2 of the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for the sale and redemption of electoral bonds. This clause specifies that no details of bond purchasers, including Know Your Customer (KYC) information, will be entered into the core banking system. As a result, the details of bond purchasers are not centrally available, and donor and recipient information are stored separately.
SBI presented that due to the substantial number of data sets, including 22,217 bonds purchased between April 2019 and February 2024, the compilation process would be time-consuming, resulting in over 44,000 data sets due to the segregation of information into two silos.
However, the Court rejected this argument.
