Electoral Bond Data: State Bank of India (SBI) has followed the order of the Supreme Court in the matter related to electoral bonds. On Wednesday (March 13, 2024), an affidavit was filed in the Supreme Court on behalf of SBI, through which the bank’s Chairman Dinesh Kumar Khara said – We have followed the order of the country’s biggest court. Information about electoral bond donations has also been made available to the Election Commission (EC).
According to SBI, “22,217 bonds were purchased between April 1, 2019 and February 15, 2024. Out of these, 22,030 electoral bonds were encashed by the parties. The money of the bonds which were not encashed by anyone was transferred to the PM Relief Fund.” SBI has handed over this information to the EC in the form of a password protected PDF file through a pen drive.
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Information given in password protected file
The affidavit further states that in respectful compliance with the above instructions, a record of this information in digital form (password protected) was made available to the Election Commission of India (ECI) before the close of business hours on 12.03.2024. (i) As per instruction No. (b), the date of purchase of each electoral bond, the name of the purchaser and the denomination of the electoral bond purchased are given. As per instruction no. (c), the date of encashment, the electoral bonds, the names of the political parties who have received contributions and the denomination of the said bonds.
Information is given about bonds from 2019 to 2024.
It further states that the above data is presented in respect of bonds purchased and redeemed between 12.04.2019 to 15.02.2024. During this period the electoral bonds were sold and redeemed in phases and the 11th phase started from 01.04.2019. The number of bonds specified in the application includes those bonds which were purchased during the period beginning April 1, 2019, and not April 12, 2019. A total of 22,217 bonds were purchased during the period 01.04.2019 to 15.02.2024. Out of which 22,030 bonds were redeemed.
Supreme Court had given extension till March 15
Let us tell you that in the Electoral Bonds case, the Supreme Court, while rejecting the petition of SBI, had given instructions to give the details by March 12. Also, EC was instructed to publish these details by March 15. The court had released the details to the SBI CMD and asked him to file an affidavit. The court refused to initiate contempt action against SBI. SC had warned that we put SBI on notice that if SBI does not comply with the directions within the time limit specified in this order, this Court may be inclined to take action against it for willful disobedience.
