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Electoral Bonds case: Supreme Court dismissed SBI’s plea for extension Of time for furnishing electoral bonds details and directed disclosure by March 12.
Supreme Court’s A five-judge Constitution bench dismissed the State Bank of India’s plea seeking extension to disclose Electoral Bond details by June 30. The SC asked SBI to provide details by March 12 in hearing on 11th March.
Senior advocate Harish Salve appeared for the State Bank of India (SBI) in Supreme Court and said that the bank needs extra time to submit details of Electoral Bonds to the Election Commission of India.
Salve said that the only problem which the SBI has is, it is trying to reverse the whole process. The SOP made sure that there was no name of the purchaser in our core banking system and the bond number. We were told that this was supposed to be secret.
However countering his argument, Supreme Court tells SBI that in its judgment, it didn’t ask the bank to do the matching exercise, and added that have directed a plain disclosure. So to seek time saying that a matching exercise is to be done is not warranted, we have not directed you to do that.
Pulling up SBI on Electoral Bonds, Supreme Court also asked them what steps have you taken in last 26 days.“The SBI has to just open sealed cover, collate details and give information to the Election Commission,” the Supreme Court added.
Harish Salve appearing for SBI told SC, ”The SC has directed for disclosure of KYC details, and the amount of bonds. This information we have and we can disclose it in two-three weeks. The court has also directed for disclosure of donations received by political parties. If a bridge does not need to be established between the two, we can disclose info in three weeks.”
On February 15, the bench had scrapped the Centre’s electoral bonds scheme which allowed anonymous funding to political parties. The judges had called it “unconstitutional” and asked the SBI to present the data within 3 weeks
A five-judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud and comprising Justices Sanjiv Khanna, BR Gavai, JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, is hearing the matter.
Earlier, the bench had asked the national bank to file details about each electoral bond encashed by political parties before the scheme was scrapped last month.
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