The Supreme Court on Friday directed the State Bank of India to publish the electoral bond data that discloses links between political parties and donors. While hearing the matter, the top court issued a notice to the SBI and sought a response by March 18.
The judgment of the Constitution bench clarified that all details of electoral bonds will be made available including the date of purchase, name of purchaser, and the denomination, the court stated. It further stated that the bank has not disclosed the electoral bonds (unique alphanumeric numbers).
During the hearing, the bench, also comprising justices Sanjiv Khanna, BR Gavai, JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, took note of the submissions made by senior advocate Kapil Sibal and lawyer Prashant Bhushan, who appeared in the matter on behalf of the petitioner, that the alpha-numeric numbers of the electoral bonds have not been disclosed by the SBI. It issued a notice to the bank and posted the matter for hearing on March 18.
EC publishes electoral bonds data on its website
On Thursday evening, the Election Commission of India (ECI) made data on electoral bonds public shared by the State Bank of India. The data has been shared by the poll body in two parts on its website.
In compliance with the Supreme Court’s directions, the State Bank of India (SBI) provided the data pertaining to the electoral bonds to the poll body on March 12, 2024. The top court had given the Election Commission time till 5 pm of March 15 to upload the data on its website. The poll body has put the details on ‘Disclosure of Electoral Bonds submitted by SBI’ in two parts.
According to the data uploaded by the poll panel, the buyers of electoral bonds include Grasim Industries, Megha Engineering, Piramal Enterprises, Torrent Power, Bharti Airtel, DLF Commercial Developers, Vedanta Ltd., Apollo Tyres, Lakshmi Mittal, Edelweiss, PVR, Keventer, Sula Wine, Welspun, and Sun Pharma.
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