The Supreme Court on Monday, March 11, dismissed the State Bank of India (SBI) petition seeking extension of time to submit details of electoral bonds. The court noted that the SBI’s submissions indicated that the information was readily available and directed the bank to submit the details by close of business hours on March 12. The Election Commission of India (ECI) has been directed to compile the information and publish the details on its official website before 5 pm on March 15.

Senior advocate Harish Salve, appearing for the SBI, argued that the delay was due to carrying out a matching exercise of the donor details and the details of the bonds encashed by the political parties.

In a significant ruling on February 15, a five-judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud declared the Union government’s electoral bonds scheme unconstitutional and said that it violated voters’ fundamental right to information. The constitution bench, also comprising Justices Sanjiv Khanna, BR Gavai, JB Pardiwala, and Manoj Misra directed the SBI, the sole issuer of electoral bonds, to submit the details of donors, donation amounts, and recipients of electoral bonds and the political parties that encashed the bonds to the ECI before March 6. The SC also directed the ECI to publish these details on its official website by March 13.

On March 4, the SBI petitioned the apex court seeking an extension until June 30 to divulge the details of electoral bonds encashed by political parties. The SBI argued that the process of retrieving information from various sources and cross-referencing data would be ‘time-consuming’. It said that decoding and matching donors to their respective donations would be very complex due to the stringent anonymity measures in place.

In response, NGOs Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and Common Cause filed a contempt plea, arguing that the SBI was deliberately defying the court’s order. They said that the delay aimed to prevent transparency efforts ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The plea added that the SBI has the capability to compile the necessary information and that the electoral bonds are traceable due to the SBI’s maintenance of a numbered record of donors and their contributions to political parties. It argued that any form of financial anonymity in politics undermines the principles of participatory democracy and the public’s right to information as enshrined in Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution.

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The Electoral Bonds scheme was introduced in 2017 through the Finance Act, which was passed as a money bill without the assent of the Rajya Sabha. Electoral bonds are similar in nature to promissory notes. Donors could buy them from SBI and donate anonymously to political parties. These bonds would neither have the donor’s name nor were political parties required to disclose the source of these bonds.

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