Extend deadline for electoral bonds data, SBI urges SC

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, March 4

Citing “certain practical difficulties”, the State Bank of India (SBI) on Monday moved the Supreme Court seeking an extension of time till June 30 to disclose details of each electoral bond encashed by political parties.

“The timeline of three weeks fixed by the court in its judgment given on February 15 will not be sufficient for the entire exercise to be completed. Therefore, an extension of time may kindly be granted by the court in order to enable the SBI to comply with the judgment,” the SBI said in an application filed in the top court, days before announcement of the LS poll.

‘Complex process’

• Data on purchase of bonds and redemption kept in two different “silos”, said SBI
• Retrieval and matching of data from “each silo” a complex & time-consuming exercise, it added.

A five-judge Bench led by CJI DY Chandrachud had on February 15 declared unconstitutional the electoral bonds scheme that allowed individuals and companies to make unlimited anonymous donations to political parties on the ground that it violated Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution which guaranteed right to freedom of speech and expression and included right to information within its ambit.

The top court had ordered the SBI to stop issuing electoral bonds immediately and submit all details by March 6 to the Election Commission which shall make all donations public by March 13.

The disclosure of information regarding electoral bonds was necessary to identify corruption and quid pro quo transactions in governance, the Bench had said.

However, maintaining that the data related to the issuance of the bond and the data related to the redemption of the bond was kept recorded in two different “silos”, without any central database, to protect donors’ anonymity required under the law, the SBI said retrieval of information from “each silo” and the procedure of matching the information of one silo to that of the other would be a complex and time-consuming exercise.

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#State Bank of India SBI #Supreme Court