EC yet to receive electoral bond details from SBI

NEW DELHI, 6 Mar: The State Bank of India has not shared details of the electoral bonds encashed by political parties till Wednesday, the deadline set by the Supreme Court.

The State Bank of India (SBI) had on Monday moved the Supreme Court seeking an extension of time till June 30 to disclose details of each electoral bond encashed by the political parties.

The SBI’s plea has not been listed for hearing by the apex court so far.

Sources said that no details have been shared with the poll panel.

Last month, a five-judge constitution bench headed by Chief Justice D.Y Chandrachud had struck down electoral bonds scheme and directed the SBI to disclose details of each electoral bond encashed by the political parties. The information should include the date of encashment and the denomination of the bonds and be submitted to the poll panel by March 6.

In its application before the apex court, the SBI had contended 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.

The bench had also said that the Election Commission (EC) should publish the information shared by the SBI on its official website by March 13.

An Election Commission spokesperson said that there was no information or comments to offer on the issue.