SC gives time till March 12 to SBI to furnish electoral bonds details

New Delhi: Hearing an application filed by the State Bank of India (SBI) seeking extension of time till June 30 to disclose details of each electoral bond encashed by political parties, a five-judge constitution bench of the Supreme Court on Monday refused to grant time to SBI.

The apex court directed SBI to handover the details to EC by Tuesday, March 12, 2024.

The bench, headed by Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud, directed that ECI shall compile the information and publish the details in its official website no later than by 15 March, 2024 by 5 PM.

SC asks ECI to publish the details of the information supplied to the Court as per interim order on its website, said CJI pronouncing the order.

"The SBI shall file an affidavit of its Chairman and Managing Director on compliance with the directions issued above. While we are not inclined to exercise the contempt jurisdiction at this time, we place SBI on notice that this Court may be inclined to proceed against it for wilful disobedience if SBI does not comply with the directions by the timelines indicated in this order," CJI said.

Senior advocate Harish Salve appearing for SBI asked the bench to clarify that correlating information is not needed.

To this, Justice Gavai said that the order dictated by my lord the Chief Justice of India is very clear.

The top court dismissed a separate plea which sought initiation of contempt action against the SBI alleging it "wilfully and deliberately" disobeyed the apex court's direction to submit details of the contributions made to political parties through electoral bonds to the Election Commission by March 6.

In a landmark verdict delivered on February 15, a five-judge constitution bench had scrapped the Centre's electoral bonds scheme of anonymous political funding, calling it "unconstitutional" and ordering disclosure by the Election Commission of the donors, the amount donated by them and the recipients by March 13.

Ordering closure of the scheme forthwith, the top court had directed the SBI, the authorised financial institution under the scheme, to submit by March 6 the details of the electoral bonds purchased since April 12, 2019 till date to the Election Commission which was asked to publish the information on its official website by March 13.

On March 4, the SBI had moved the apex court seeking extension of time till June 30 to disclose the details of electoral bonds encashed by political parties.

In its application, the SBI has 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.

Dictating the order, CJI said, "By judgment dated Feb 15, this Court declared the Electoral Bonds scheme unconstitutional on the ground that non-disclosure of information regarding the funding of political parties is violative of right to information of citizens under Article 19(1)(a).

"The amendments permitting unlimited political funding by corporate entities were held to be arbitrary and violative of Article 14.

"In order to give the full effect to the judgment, this Court directed the SBI, which was the authorised bank to deal with the electoral bonds, to submit the details of the electoral bonds purchased by the contributors and redeemed by political parties between April 12, 2019 till 15 Feb 2024.

"SBI filed a Miscellaneous Application before this Court two days before the expiry of deadline seeking extension of time till June 30, 2024 for complying with the directions.

"Petitioners - ADR, Communist Party of India (Marxist)- instituted a petition invoking the contempt jurisdiction of this Court

"Mr. Salve submitted that the information which was received by the SBI was maintained in two separate silos and were maintained with utmost secrecy so as to fulfill the purpose of the electoral bonds scheme. He submitted that if the disclosure is to be made of the information required to be submitted by the SBI to ECI in separate silos which are referred to in B and C of the operative directions, there would be no difficulty in SBI doing so, which has been indicated that would be completed within 3 weeks.

"It is submitted that the difficulty of SBI arose since it construed the direction of this Court as to do a matching exercise of the donor details and the details of the bonds encashed by the political parties.

"While evaluating the submissions made by the SC, a reference to some of the key aspects of the scheme would be in order. Clause 7 of the EB scheme stipulates that the information furnished by a buyer of the EB shall be treated as confidential and shall be disclosed only when called upon to do so by a competent court or by a registration of offence by a law enforcement agency.

"Thus in terms of the provisions of the electoral bonds scheme itself SBI is mandated to disclose information when mandated by a Court.

"What has to be analysed is whether SBI is justified in seeking an extension of time. SBI seeks an extension of time on the ground that the process of "decoding the electoral bonds and matching the donors to donations" is a complex and time consuming exercise. 

"To substantiate, SBI has averred that; (a) information is not available in a digital format; (b) Clause 7.1.2 of SOP stipulates that "no details of bond purchaser including KYC and other details will be entered in the core banking system".

"Thus the details of the purchasers of the bond are not available centrally; (d)donor details and recipient details are available in separate silos; (e) details of the purchasers were kept in a sealed cover, which were deposited in the main branch of SBI Mumbai. The information of redemption of electoral bonds were stored in a sealed cover and were sent to SBI Mumbai branch. Matching of the information in the two silos is time-consuming process. Matching of the information on the purchase and redemption of bonds would be time consuming since donor information and redemption information is maintained in two distinct silos independent of each other. There is a large number of data sets to decipher. A total of 22,217 bonds were purchased between the period. This would add up to 44, 434 data sets since there are two silos of information.

"The crux of the SBI's submission is that the matching of information to ascertain who contributed to which political party is a time consuming process since the information is maintained in two separate silos.

"The operative directions of this Court directed the SBI to disclose the transactions as set out in direction B and direction C. SBI submits in its application itself that the donor details and redemption details are available albeit in separate silos. In other words, the direction issued by this court require SBI to disclose information which is already available with it.

"FAQs on EBs published by the SBI states KYC documents must be submitted by the purchaser each time the bond is purchased irrespective of whether the purchaser has a KYC verified SBI account.

"That is one set of documents (electoral bond application form, KYC documents and pay in slip) can be only be used to purchase one electoral bond. Contributors who have an SBI account as well as those who don't have to submit the EB application, KYC docs and proof of payment through NEFT/Cheque/DD.

"Thus, the details of the bonds which have been purchased are readily available.

"Similarly, the FAQs with respect to redemption of bonds states that each political party can only open one current account for EB redemption. The current account would be opened by the political party only in 39 authorised branches.

"The information about poltical parties information will be stored in these branches which would be clearly accessible.

"There is no dispute about the fact that this process was duly followed.

"Together with the SBI's application for extension of time, ADR has filed a contempt petition in which it submits that the information can be easily disclosed by the SBI because of the unique number printed on the electoral bonds.

"The submissions of the SBI sufficiently indicate that the information is readily available. The Application filed by the SBI seeking extension of time until 30 June, 2024 is dismissed.

"SBI is directed to disclose the details by the close of business hours 12 March, 2024.

"ECI shall compile the information and publish the details in its official website no later than by 15 March, 2024 by 5 PM.

"SC asks ECI to publish the details of the information supplied to the Court as per interim order on its website.

"The SBI shall file an affidavit of its Chairman and Managing Director on compliance with the directions issued above. While we are not inclined to exercise the contempt jurisdiction at this time, we place SBI on notice that this Court may be inclined to proceed against it for wilful disobedience if SBI does not comply with the directions by the timelines indicated in this order."