The Supreme Court of India on Monday rejected a plea to order the State Bank of India (SBI) to disclose information about electoral bonds purchased and redeemed before April 12, 2019. It has asked the bank to disclose all details and to include the electoral bond numbers.
“SBI should not be selective in disclosing the details. We want all information related to the electoral bonds to be disclosed which is in SBI possession,” the court said in its judgment.
A five-judge bench headed by Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud said the apex court had, in its verdict in the electoral bonds case, asked the bank to disclose all the details of the bonds and it should not wait for further orders on this aspect.
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The apex court also directed the SBI Chairman to file an affidavit by 5 pm, Thursday indicating that SBI has disclosed all details of Electoral Bonds which were in its possession and custody and no details have been withheld.
“We will say SBI shall disclose the bond numbers and also that you should file an affidavit stating that you have not suppressed any information,” said DY Chandrachud, the Chief Justice of India (CJI) as quoted by LiveLaw.
“In our judgment, we have taken a conscious decision that the cut-off date should be date of interim order (April 12, 2019). We took that date because it was our considered view that once that interim order was pronounced, everybody was put on notice,” the CJI added.
The Election Commission of India on 17 March uploaded the data received in digitized form from the registry of the Supreme Court on electoral bonds on its website.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) at the Centre received the maximum funds through these bonds at ₹6,986.5 crore since they were introduced in 2018, followed by West Bengal’s ruling party Trinamool Congress ( ₹1,397 crore), Congress ( ₹1,334 crore) and Bharat Rashtra Samithi ( ₹1,322 crore), according to the latest data shared by the EC.
Earlier on 15 March, the EC had released the first detailed data on electoral bonds, after sourcing it from the State Bank of India.
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Published: 18 Mar 2024, 11:27 AM IST