During a hearing on petitions by the Election Commission on 15th March 2024, the Supreme Court expressed dissatisfaction with the data provided by the SBI. Chief Justice Dy Chandrachud who is leading a five-judge-bench, highlighted that the data is incomplete and has not been furnished despite the order of the SC.
During the hearing, the Election Commission highlighted the court’s order to maintain copies of documents submitted in a sealed cover during the hearing. The EC stated that it did not retain any copies and requested their return to comply with the court’s order.
After banning electoral bonds, the Supreme Court ordered SBI to provide detailed information about the entities involved in selling and purchasing the electoral bonds. Which later needs to be published on the Election Commission’s website. SBI submitted the data to ECI on 12th March after the Supreme Court rejected its plea for more time to give more time to the bank for submission of details.
In the report, SBI said that a total of 22,217 electoral bonds were bought and 22,030 had already been redeemed by the political parties over 5 years from April 1, 2019, to February 15, 2024.
According to data provided by the State Bank of India BJP benefited the most from these electoral bonds. Almost 50% of the bonds collected went to the BJP, receiving over Rs 6061 Crore in funding over the past five years. After this Trinamool Congress is the second largest beneficiary of electoral bonds which received about Rs 1609.50 crore, while the Congress received around Rs 1421 crore.
As per the reports, the missing data is the Unique number linked to the electrical bond bought or redeemed, and after observing the incomplete data the bench then issued a notice to SBI and said, “The judgment of the Constitution Bench required the SBI to furnish to the ECI all details of the electoral bonds purchased and, as the case may be, redeemed by political parties including the date of purchase, name of the purchaser and the date of purchase/redemption.”
“It has been submitted that the SBI has not disclosed the unique alphanumeric number of the electoral bonds. The Solicitor General submits that since he is not appearing for the SBI, notice may be issued to the SBI. We direct the Registry to issue notice to SBI, returnable on Monday,” it said.
What are electoral bonds?
Electrical bonds are financial instruments that allow individuals and corporations to donate funds to political parties while maintaining anonymity. These bonds were made available in the form of denominations of Rs 1000, and the State Bank of India and its branches were responsible for maintaining the transactions of these bonds. These bonds were launched when a donation to political parties was capped at Rs 2000 by Union Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs, Arun Jaitley.
The electrical bond scheme could have been a bold attempt to reform political funding in India and promote transparency in the electoral process, However, the implementation has been met with controversies and criticism since its inception, The involvement of the State Bank of India and the scrutiny of the Supreme Court highlights the complex legal and ethical issues surrounding the scheme
