SBI Seeks Timeline Till 30th June To Make Electoral Bonds Details Public

On March 4, the State Bank of India (SBI) filed an appeal with the Supreme Court requesting an extension of time till June 30, 2024, from March 6, for the disclosure of information on electoral bonds that political parties have redeemed, including the date of encashment and the bond amount. The SBI's proposed extension of time would guarantee that information on the electoral bonds is released following the Lok Sabha elections. The Supreme Court ordered on February 15 that the State Bank of India provide the Election Commission with a list of all the electoral bonds that have been acquired following the court's April 12, 2019, interim ruling.

The information must contain the name of the buyer, the denomination of each bond, and the date of purchase. The SBI must also provide details about the political parties that have benefited from contributions made through the bonds, as well as specifics about each bond that they have redeemed. The public sector bank must provide the EC with the aforementioned data no later than March 6, 2024, or three weeks after the ruling on Thursday. According to the court, the EC must post the material given by the SBI on its official website within a week of receiving it, or by March 13, 2024.

According to the plea, accessed by Moneycontrol, SBI has stated that there are certain practical difficulties with the decoding exercise and the timeline fixed for it.

SBI told the Supreme Court that "retrieval of information from each silo and the procedure of matching the information of one silo to that of the other would be a time consuming exercise".

"Due to the stringent measures that they had adopted to keep the names of the donors anonymous, "decoding" the electoral bonds and the matching of the donor to the donations made would be a 'complex process," the plea further stated according to the source.

The plea further stated: "On the other end, each political party was required to maintain a designated account in any of the 29 authorised branches. It was only in this account that electoral bonds received by that party could be deposited and redeemed. At the time of redemption, the original bond, the pay-in slip would be stored in a sealed cover and sent to the SBI Mumbai Main Branch," as per Moneycontrol.

In its submission, SBI informed the Supreme Court that details about electoral bond purchases made by branches are kept in two separate silos rather than centrally at one location. "No central database was maintained. This was done so as to ensure that donors' anonymity would be protected," the plea stated. "Retrieval of information from each silo and the procedure of matching the information of one silo to that of the other would be a time consuming exercise," SBI told SC.

The plea said, "Redeemed Bonds were deposited to Mumbai Main Branch by the Authorised Branches at the end of each phase in sealed envelopes. Coupled with the fact that two different information silos existed, this would mean that a total of forty four thousand four hundred thirty four (44,434) information."

SBI reports that 22,217 electoral bonds were handed over to different political parties between 2019 and February 2024. The ADR's data indicates that a total of Rs 16,518.11 crore was raised through the selling of electoral bonds between March 2018 and January 2024.