Electoral Bonds: Apex Court Dismisses SBI Extecsion Plea, Directs Bank to Disclose Details by March 12
(Judicial Quest News Network)
In a significant development a five-judge Constitution bench of the Apex Court on Monday dismissed the SBI’s plea seeking an extension till June, 30 to furnish the details regarding electoral bonds.
The bench comprising of Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, and Justices Sanjiv Khanna, BR Gavai, JB Pardiwala,and Manoj Misra was hearing the SBI’S application for an extension of the deadline, along with contempt petitions filed by Association of Democratic reforms (ADR),Common Cause , and Communist Party of India (Marxist),against the public sector over its non-disclosure of vital details related to electoral bonds despite the Supreme Court’s directives to that effect.
This move comes less than a month a constitution bench of the Supreme Court, while declarinfg the electoral bonds scheme unconstitutional, directed theissuning bank, i.e State bank of India to submit details of electoral bonds purchased sonce April, 12 2019, to Election Commission of India by March, 6.
“Submmissions of SBI in application indicates that information sought is readily available. Thus the application by SBI seeking extension until June, 30 is dismissed. SBI is directed to disclose the details by the close of business hours of March 12, 2024,” The Court Ordered.
Senior Advocate Harish Salve, appearing for the State bank of India highlighted the challeng faced by the bankin reconciling donor details and redemption details, which were stored in separate information silos. He said, “We need a little more time to comply with your lordships’ order.
Responding to this Chief Justice DY Chandrachud pointed out that court’s directions did not require the bank to cinduct a ‘matching exeercise’ but simply to disclose the information. The Chief Justice also noted that the bank had all the necessary details, as evidenced by its KYC records.
“What you are saying is that there are two different silos and rematching them would require significant effort.But, if you see the direction s we issued, we did not ask you to do this matchinfg excersie.We have simple directed plain disclosure. The grounds on which you seek additional time do not accord at all with the directions we issued.
“We have the details, I am not saying we don’t have them, Salve told the court, before reiterating that difficulty was caused because of siloisation of the information recorded by the Stae Bank of India.
“We were told that this was supposed to be sevret.That is how we devised the mechanism. We don’t want to now create any havoc by making any mistake …. “Salve aragued.
To this Justice Khanna responded promptle sayin that “There is no question of any mistake. You have the KYC. You are the number one bank in the country. We expect you to handle it.”
He also pointed out to the paragraph no 10 of the SBI’S submissions, which indicated that all purchasing details were kept in a sealed cover at the main branch.
The judge then suggested a straightforward solution: Simply opened up the sealed cover, collate the names, and furnish the details.”
Slave acknoldged that the SBI had the purchaser details but explainded the difficulty in matching them with the bond numbers.
Apart from this, he mentioned that some of the information was kept physically, not digitally, compounding the difficulty of the taks.
The Supreme Court’s Order of February, 15, 2024 had clearly said that “Maintaining the anonymity of the contributor is a crucial and primary
Characteristic of the Electoral Bond Scheme. The electoral bond is defined as a bearer banking instrument which does not carry the name of the buyer.74 the law mandates the authorized bank to not disclose the information furnished by the buyer except when demanded by a competent court or upon the registration of a criminal case by law enforcement agencies.”
Further the court noted that Frequently Asked Questions published by SBI with respect to redemptiio of electoral bonds states that each political party can only open current account for electoral bonds redemption.
“The current account of the political party only in 4 authorised branches. Thus, details of info of EB encashed by political parties will be aavailabale in these 4 branches and the slips etc will have to deposit with the main bank and this process was followed.”
The bench also cautioned SBI of contemp of court in case it fails to comply with Court’s direction.
“Though we are not exercising the contempt jurisdication, but we place SBI put on notice that this court will be proceed against it for wilfuldisobedience of court if it does not adhere to the directions issued by the court,” the order said.
The details sought by the SBI on one hand include the date of purchase of each electoral bond, the name of the purchaser of the bond, and the denomination of the electoral bond purchased. On the other, details of each electoral bonds encshaed by the political parties, including the date of such encashment, were also asked to be disclosed.
“Political parties have already given the dtails of encashment made by them. Purchasers details are already available.”Justice Khanna pointed out.
“Alright we will dicatate a short order.” Chief Justice DY ChandraChud indicated. At thei juncture, Senior Advocate Prashant Bhushan, b representing ADR and Common Cause, attempted to injerject.The Chief Justice stopped him, saying, “After we dictate the order,if something remains, you can then mnake your submission.”
The Back Ground
Last month the Constitution bench had unanimously quashed the Electoral Bonds Scheme and directed the State bank of India (SBI), to submit the details of the political parties that have received contributions through electoral bonds from April, 12, 2019 to the Election Commission of India (ECI).
The Court had in that judgement had ordered that details of each electoral bond encashed by the politicalparties must be furnished by SBI to the ECI by March, 6.
The following wre the details that SBI was requied to furnish:
- Details of each ekectoral bonds purchased;
- Name of Purchaser;
- Denominations of electoral Bonds;and
- Details of each electoral bond redeemed by political parties including the date of encashment.
The ECI was then to publish this information on its official website within one week of receiving this information from the SBI.
