The Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court, comprising five judges, heard a plea filed by the State Bank of India (SBI) today.
Supreme Court has dismissed the SBI application seeking time till June 30, 2024 to furnish details of purchase and redemption of electoral bonds to Election Commission of India.
The Court has directed SBI to disclose the details by the close of business hours of Mrach 12, 2024.
Further the Court has directed ECI to publish details of Bonds, which were filed by EC in sealed cover with SC by 5 PM of March 15.
Further the Court puts SBI chairman Dinesh Kumar Khara on notice warning that if the details of Bonds were not submitted by SBI to EC by Mar 12, it would be constrained to initiate contempt proceedings against the chairman.
SBI had sought an extension until June 30 from the apex court for disclosing details of electoral bonds converted to cash by political parties.
Senior Advocate Harish Salve appearing for SBI submitted that SBI need a little more time to comply with Supreme Coirt judgment, as they are having to collate all the information. He said- Our process made sure that there was no correlation between the KYC, bond numbers.
On this CJI said
“We have not told you to match donor KYC, with political parties. We have only asked for you to disclose the available details with the EC.
SBI can simply comply with the judgement by disclosing available info.”
All details are available in the main branch of SBI. SBI can simply open up the sealed covers and corelate the information.”
Salve submitted: I have full details on who purchased the bond and I have full details from where the money came from and which political party tendered how much.. i have to also now put the name of purchasers.. the names have to be collated.. crosschecked with the bond numbers.
Moving further CJI asked: In the last 26 days, what progress has been made on matching?
SBI should have disclosed extent of progress made with matching.
Salve argued that if someone purchases Bond X then name of Y is coming then it would create havoc. we were asked not to leak, hence it was made like this.
The CJI also took exception of the fact that an assistant general manager of the Bank has filed the affidavit seeking modification of the judgment of a Constitution Bench of the Court.
Request for Contempt Action Against SBI
Presided over by Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, the bench also heard a separate petition that requests the initiation of contempt proceedings against SBI.
The bank is accused of deliberately disobying the Supreme Court’s directive to submit details of donations received by political parties through electoral bonds to the Election Commission by March 6.
The Constitution Bench includes Justices Sanjeev Khanna, B.R Gavai, J.B. Pardiwala, and Manoj Mishra. The hearing on SBI’s plea is scheduled for this morning.
Supreme Court’s Historic Verdict
It is noteworthy that the Supreme Court had passed a landmark ruling on February 15 concerning electoral bonds.
The court had annulled the electoral bond scheme and declared it unconstitutional. Furthermore, it had ordered the Election Commission to disclose the identities of the donors and the amounts donated by March 13.
However, SBI has approached the Supreme Court, requesting more time until June 30 to reveal the details of the electoral bonds.
