Coming down heavily on the State Bank of India (SBI), the Supreme Court on Monday warned the public sector bank while directing it to submit all the details of the electoral bonds purchased from April 12, 2019 till date to the Election Commission of India by March 12. Issuing its final warning, the five-judge constitution bench headed by headed by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud asked the SBI to inform the honourable court of the steps taken by it to disclose details of electoral bonds encashed by political parties before the scheme was scrapped in February 2024.
Asked the SBI to do a “plain disclosure” as per the court’s judgment, the apex court also ruled that after the SBI submits details of the donors by March 12, the Election Commission should release the same for public by 5 pm on March 15. In its ruling the court also warned the SBI that if the orders were not followed, then contempt of court proceedings would be initiatied against the bank.
In a strongly worded order, the courets asked the SBI, “In the last 26 days, what steps have you taken? Your application is silent on that.” The other judges on the bench are justices Sanjiv Khanna, B R Gavai, J B Pardiwala, and Manoj Misra.
A five-judge Constitution bench of the Supreme Court had on February 15 scrapped the Centre’s electoral bonds scheme. Under this scgheme anonymous political funding was allowed. The court in its order called the electoral bonds scheme “unconstitutional” while directing the Election Commission to reveal details of donors as well as the amount donated by them and the political parties which received them by March 13.
In its order, the SC stated that SBI has all the information in a sealed cover which needs to be collated and then handed over to the Election Commission.
While seeking more time to reveal the details till June 30 to disclose the details, the SBI has moved a petition.