Why withhold info that links electoral bond donor, beneficiary: SC to SBI

The Supreme Court Friday asked State Bank of India (SBI) why it had withheld the unique numbers associated with electoral bonds purchased and encashed since April 12, 2019, ordering it to respond on March 18. The alpha-numeric ID can be used to connect the purchaser of an electoral bond with the political party that encashed it.

When the SC scrapped the bonds in mid-February on the grounds that they were unconstitutional, it had asked SBI to provide full details of the funding instrument to the Election Commission of India (ECI), which was to then post this publicly. SBI was the sole issuer of electoral bonds.

“We can take exception” to the non-disclosure of the bond numbers by SBI, a five-member bench headed by chief justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud said Friday. The ECI published the information provided by SBI on Thursday. This related to entities that had purchased electoral bonds during the period in question but didn’t include the unique number. The data shows the entities that have bought bonds, including how much, and the parties that have received money, including the quantity.

The data now available doesn’t show who gave what to whom, which the unique number would have revealed.

The bench has asked SBI to respond by Monday, March 18, the day the matter will come up for hearing again. “The judgment of the constitution bench clarified that all details of electoral bonds will be made available including date of purchase, name of purchaser, the denomination. It has been submitted that SBI has not disclosed the electoral bond numbers,” the bench said in its order issuing notice to SBI.

The notice was issued after solicitor general Tushar Mehta suggested that a response be sought from the bank before
proceeding further. Mehta clarified that he was not appearing on behalf of SBI. Speaking for the bench, the CJI remarked that SBI had not made full disclosure as mandated by the top court in its February 15 judgment.

When the matter came up for hearing on Friday, the CJI asked who was appearing on behalf of SBI. The bench was informed that there was no one doing so as the bank was not a party to the case. The CJI said someone should have been in attendance since the matter was being taken up in the resumed hearing.

Echoing the CJI’s concern that the electoral bond number had not been disclosed by SBI, senior advocate Kapil Sibal read out the February 15 judgment, stating that it was an “inclusive” order. Advocate Prashant Bhushan, counsel for the co-petitioner, also argued that SBI had conceded before the bench that it has the unique electoral bond numbers and yet it chose not to divulge the information.

At the last hearing, senior advocate Harish Salve, appearing on behalf of SBI, had sought extension of the deadline
to furnish details on the bonds to June 30 from March 6. The bank told the court in a petition last week that “decoding” the data and “matching donors to the donations would be a complex process”.

Refusing to extend the deadline, the bench had on March 11 asked SBI for a “plain disclosure” of donations and “not to conduct a matching exercise”. Holding that the information was “readily available” with SBI, the top court had directed the bank to provide the information to the ECI by March 12. The poll panel had been directed to upload the information on its official website by 5 pm on March 15.


(You can now subscribe to our Economic Times WhatsApp channel)