The State Bank of India (SBI) has approached the Supreme Court seeking an extension of time until June 30 to disclose details of each electoral bond enchased by political parties. This move comes in response to the top court’s directive last month, which mandated the SBI to furnish these details to the Election Commission by March 6.
In its application submitted to the Supreme Court, the SBI argued that retrieving information from various silos and matching the data would be a time-consuming process. The complexity arises from the stringent measures in place to maintain the anonymity of donors, making the decoding of electoral bonds and matching donors to donations a challenging task.
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The plea highlighted that data pertaining to the issuance and redemption of bonds was stored in separate silos without a central database to safeguard donor anonymity. Donor details were sealed and kept at designated branches, with all sealed covers deposited at the main branch of the SBI in Mumbai.
The Supreme Court’s landmark verdict on February 15 invalidated the electoral bonds scheme for political funding, citing violations of constitutional rights. The court ordered the SBI to disclose the names of contributors to the six-year-old scheme, emphasizing transparency in political funding.
A five-judge Constitution bench, led by Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud, directed the SBI to provide details of each electoral bond enchased by political parties, including the date and denomination of the bonds, to the Election Commission by March 6.
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