SBI Moves Supreme Court Seeking Extension To Furnish Details Of Electoral Bonds Before Election Commission

In its verdict months ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, the Supreme Court ordered SBI to disclose to the Election Commission the names of the contributors to the six-year-old scheme.

The Supreme Court had earlier asked the SBI to submit details by March 6.

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The State Bank of India has moved the Supreme Court seeking an extension till June 30 to submit details of Electoral Bonds to the Election Commission of India, a report in ANI said. The Supreme Court had earlier asked the SBI to submit details by March 6.

In an application filed before the apex court, SBI contended that retrieval of information and the procedure of matching the information would be a time-consuming exercise.

The SBI plea stated that due to stringent measures undertaken to ensure that the identity of the donors was kept anonymous, decoding' the electoral bonds and matching donors to the donations made would be a complex process.

The petition said that the data related to the issuance of electoral bonds and the data related to the redemption of the bond was kept recorded in two different silos.

This was done to ensure that donors' anonymity would be protected. "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," the plea said.

In a landmark judgement last month, the Supreme Court annulled the electoral bonds scheme for political funding, saying it violates the Constitutional right to freedom of speech and expression as well as the right to information.

In its verdict months ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, the apex court ordered SBI to disclose to the Election Commission the names of the contributors to the six-year-old scheme.

A five-judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud directed that the SBI must disclose details of each electoral bond encashed by 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.