Supreme Court dismissed SBI’s plea for an extension of time for furnishing electoral bond details and directed disclosure by March 12.
Salve said that the only problem the SBI has is, it is trying to reverse the whole process. The SOP made sure that there was no name of the purchaser in our core banking system and the bond number. We were told that this was supposed to be a secret.
However countering his argument, the Supreme Court tells SBI that in its judgment, it didn’t ask the bank to do the matching exercise, and added that have directed a plain disclosure. So to seek time saying that a matching exercise is to be done is not warranted, we have not directed you to do that.
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The Supreme Court pulling up SBI on Electoral Bonds, also asked them what steps they had taken in the last 26 days.“The SBI has to just open the sealed cover, collate details, and give information to the Election Commission,” the Supreme Court added.
Harish Salve appearing for SBI told SC, ”The SC has directed for disclosure of KYC details, and the amount of bonds. This information we can disclose it in two to three weeks. The court has also directed the disclosure of donations received by political parties. If a bridge does not need to be established between the two, we can disclose info in three weeks.”
On February 15, the bench had scrapped the Centre’s electoral bonds scheme that allowed anonymous political funding. The judges had called it “unconstitutional”.
A five-judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud and comprising Justices Sanjiv Khanna, BR Gavai, JB Pardiwala, and Manoj Misra, is hearing the matter.
Earlier, the bench had asked the national bank to file details about each electoral bond encashed by political parties before the scheme was scrapped last month.
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