NEW DELHI, 11 Mar: Supreme Court on Monday trashed State Bank of India’s plea seeking an extension of time and ordered it to disclose the details of electoral bonds to the Election Commission of India (ECI) by close of business hours on 12 March.
A five-judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud also directed the ECI to publish the details shared by the bank on its official website by 5 pm on 15 March.
The bench, also comprising Justices Sanjiv Khanna, BR Gavai, JB Pardiwala, and Manoj Misra, put the SBI on notice that the apex court may be inclined to proceed against it for “willful disobedience” of its 15 February verdict if the bank fails to comply with its directions and timelines.
In a landmark verdict delivered on 15 February, a five-judge Constitution bench had scrapped the Centre’s electoral bonds scheme that allowed anonymous political funding, calling it “unconstitutional,” and ordered disclosure by the ECI of the donors, the amount donated by them, and the recipients by 13 March.
Ordering the closure of the scheme, the top court directed the SBI, the authorised financial institution under the scheme, to submit by 6 March the details of the electoral bonds purchased since 12 April, 2019, till date to the ECI.
On Monday, the bench was hearing the bank’s application, seeking an extension of time till 30 June to furnish the details.
The bench was also hearing separate pleas seeking the initiation of contempt action against the SBI for alleged willful disobedience of the apex court’s 15 February directives.
It observed that the SBI’s submissions in the application sufficiently indicated that the information which was directed to be disclosed by the court was readily available.
“In view of the above discussion, the miscellaneous application filed by SBI seeking an extension of time for the disclosure of details of the purchase and redemption of electoral bonds until 30 June, 2024, is dismissed,” it said.
“SBI is directed to disclose the details by the close of business hours of 12 March,” the bench said, adding, “As regards the ECI, we direct that ECI shall compile the information and publish the details on its official website no later by 5 pm on 15 March, 2024”.
The bench said that the SBI shall file an affidavit of its chairman and managing director on compliance with the directions issued by the top court.
During the hearing, the bench took note of the submissions of senior advocate Harish Salve, appearing for the SBI, that more time was needed for collating the details and matching them as the information was kept in two different silos with its branches.
He had further said that if the matching exercise was to be done away with, the SBI could complete the exercise within three weeks.
The bench said that it had not directed the bank to match the details of the donors and the donees with other information.
“The SBI has to just open the sealed cover, collate the details, and give the information to the ECI,” it said.
The bench also asked the bank about the steps taken by it to comply with the directions given by the top court in its 15 February judgment.
“In the last 26 days, what steps have you taken? Your application is silent on that,” it said.
It also asked the SBI to do a “plain disclosure” as per the court’s judgment.
At the outset, Salve told the bench that the bank had stopped the issuance of electoral bonds as per the court’s 15 February direction.
“We need a little more time to comply with your lordships’ order,” he said.
Justice Chandrachud, while referring to the SBI’s application, said that, as per the bank, the donor details were kept in a sealed cover in a designated branch of the bank.
Justice Khanna said that the bank mentioned in the application that all purchaser details were kept in a sealed cover.
In its application, the SBI had contended that the 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 application said that, due to stringent measures undertaken to ensure that the identity of the donors was kept anonymous, “decoding” the electoral bonds and matching the donors to the donations would be a complex process.
“It submitted that the data related to the issuance of the bond and the data related to the redemption of the bond were kept recorded in two different silos. No central database was maintained,” it said.
“It is submitted that donor details were kept in a sealed cover at the designated branches and all such sealed covers were deposited in the main branch of the applicant bank, which is located in Mumbai,” it said. (PTI)
