The State Bank of India (SBI) chairman Dinesh Kumar Khara on Wednesday informed the Supreme Court that the bank has complied with the Court's direction for submitting information pertaining to electoral bonds to the Election Commission of India. The five-judge Constitution bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud and Justices Sanjiv Khanna, BR Gavai, JB Pardiwala and Manoj Mishra had on March 11 dismissed a plea by SBI to extend the deadline set by the top court for furnishing details of electoral bonds.It had also warned of contempt of court action against the SBI for “willful disobedience” of its directions in case the non-compliance persisted on March 15.It had further sought a compliance affidavit from the chairman. Yesterday, the SBI furnished the information to ECI following which the chairman submitted a compliance affidavit today stating the following:SBI Chairman compliance affidavit to Supreme CourtThe information furnished to ECI include the date of purchase of each electoral bond, the name of the purchaser and the denomination of the bond purchased.Additionally, it also contains information pertaining to the date of encashment of the electoral bonds, the name of political parties who have received the contributions and the denomination of those bonds.
A total number of 22,217 bonds were purchased between April 1, 2019 till February 15, 2024. Out of them, a total of 22,030 bonds were redeemed.
In a judgment rendered on February 15, the Constitution Bench had unanimously quashed the Electoral Bonds Scheme and directed SBI to submit the details of the political parties that have received contributions through electoral bonds from April 12, 2019, to the ECI.
The Court in that judgment had ordered that details of each electoral bond encashed by political parties must be furnished by the SBI to the ECI by March 6.
The following were the details that SBI was required to furnish:
- Details of each electoral bonds purchased;
- Name of purchaser;
- Denomination of electoral bonds; and
- Details of each electoral bond redeemed by political parties including the date of encashment.
The ECI was to then publish this information on its official website within one week of receiving this information from the SBI.
However, the SBI then filed an application before apex court for an extension of the deadline till June 30 to comply with the directions.
The Supreme Court dismissed the application on March 11 and directed that the details be supplied to ECI by 5.30 pm on March 15.
TAGS: Supreme Court SBI electoral bonds compliance Election Commission of India affidavit deadline details purchase redemption Constitution Bench judgment directive
