Electoral Bonds: Fresh plea in Supreme Court seeks full details from SBI

A plea filed by an NGO said that only 76% data on Electoral Bonds have bee disclosed so far.

New DelhI: A fresh plea has been filed in the Supreme Court seeking a direction to the State Bank of India (SBI) to furnish to the Election Commission all the details of the Electoral Bonds sold for the period from March 1, 2018 till April 11, 2019 including the alpha numeric number, date of purchase, denomination and the name of the donor and the political parties within a time frame.

"Once the entire Electoral Bond Scheme is held to be violative of Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution, the citizens are entitled to know the details of the donor and donee of the entire period from March 2018 onwards (the date when the scheme became functional).

The data available on the platform of the Election Commission represents only 76% of the total bonds and the voters are not aware of the details of the remaining 24% of the Electoral Bonds," a plea filed by NGO Citizens Rights Trust stated.

In an application filed by advocate Sneha Kalita, the plea claimed as per news report the SBI has sold Electoral Bonds worth Rs 16,518 Cr since March 2018 as per response to the RTI application."

However, the Election Commission of India on its website has released information of only 18,871 bonds accounting for Rs12,516 crores. Thus, information in respect of 9,159 bonds worth Rs 4,002 crores have not been disclosed," it claimed.

The NGO said the cut off date of April 12, 2019 is relevant only for the purpose of furnishing of information by the political parties to the Election Commission as an interim arrangement when the matter was sub-judice before this court. 

"Once, this court in the final judgement and order dated February 15, 2024 has struck down the entire Electoral Bond Scheme and the amendments to the Representation of the People Act, 1951, Companies Act, 2013 and the Income Tax Act, 1961 by the Finance Act, 2017, the voters are entitled to know the funding to the political parties by the Electoral Bond for the entire period," it said.

The Supreme Court's Constitution bench led by Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud is set to consider on Monday, March 18 a response from the SBI as to why it didn't disclose alfa numeric numbers of the Electoral Bonds to the Election Commission for uploading on the website.