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The Supreme Court of India on Monday rejected State Bank of India’s (SBI) request seeking extension of time to disclose details of the electoral bond scheme.
The apex court has asked SBI to share the details with the Election Commission of India (ECI) by tomorrow, Tuesday, March 12. The election panel has been asked to publish the details on its website by 5pm on Friday, March 15.
Here are the five main points of the decision
SBI will give details by March 12
After scrapping the electoral bond scheme, on February 15, the Supreme Court had directed SBI, India’s largest public bank, to submit all details regarding the bonds to the Election Commission of India by March 6. Furthermore, the Election Commission was directed to publish the received data on its website by March 13.
However, on March 4, SBI approached the apex court seeking extension till June 30 to disclose the details.
Today, a five-judge Constitution bench comprising Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud, Justices Sanjiv Khanna, BR Gavai, JB Pardiwala and Manoj Mishra rejected SBI’s time-extension plea. The top court has ordered that the details be disclosed by SBI to the Election Commission by March 12.
“SBI’s submissions in the application indicate that the information sought is readily available. Thus, SBI’s application seeking extension of time till June 30 is rejected. SBI has to submit the same till the end of business hours on March 12, 2024.” The apex court said in the order, bar and bench informed of.
Details on EC website till 15 March
bar and bench While passing the order, the bench is reported to have said that the now defunct Electoral Bond Scheme has a provision that the information given by the purchaser of such bonds will be treated as confidential by the authorized bank and will be disclosed when asked to do so. Will go. On registration of crime by law enforcement agencies.
Once SBI submits the details, the Election Commission of India has to post them on its website. The poll panel has been asked to publish the details on its website by 5 pm on Friday, March 15.
The dates become important as the Election Commission is expected to announce the schedule for April-May Lok Sabha elections 2024 in a few days from now.
Contempt warning to SBI
The Supreme Court, in its order dated March 11, also warned SBI that it would initiate contempt proceedings against SBI if the information regarding electoral bonds was not given before the close of business hours on March 12.
Also read: SBI share price falls 2% on weak sentiment after Supreme Court hearing on electoral bond case
SBI has been asked to file an affidavit of its Chairman and Managing Director on compliance with the Supreme Court directions. “Although we are not inclined to exercise contempt jurisdiction at this time, we do put on notice to SBI that if SBI does not comply with the directions as per the timeline stated in this order then this Court will initiate proceedings against it for willful disobedience.” “Might be inclined to do.” The court said.
SC rejects two silo arguments
SBI had claimed in its petition that there were a large number of data sets to understand. The petition said 22,217 bonds were purchased between April 2019 and February 2024 and this would result in over 44,000 data sets as there are two silos of information. Thus, SBI said that compilation would be a time-consuming process. However, the Supreme Court refused to accept this argument Bar and bench.
No donor-political party link?
In a previous order, the Supreme Court had ordered that details of each electoral bond encashed by political parties should be submitted by the SBI to the election panel by March 6.
SBI was required to publish details including details about the purchaser, value of the electoral bond and date of encashment of each electoral bond encashed by political parties.
However, the apex court has agreed to SBI’s request not to link the donor to a political party. The top court said that all SBI has to do is open the sealed envelope, collect the details and give the information to the Election Commissioner. SBI was asked to provide details of both bonds encashed by donors and political parties, without ‘matching’ them.
Therefore, the important thing is that no link will be established between the donors of electoral bonds and the political parties who purchase them.
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Published: March 11, 2024, 01:37 PM IST
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