The Supreme Court gave an order on Monday to the State Bank of India (SBI) saying they must give the electoral bond donor details to the Election Commission of India (EC) by tomorrow, March 12. The court didn’t agree with SBI’s request for more time.
The court noticed that the person who asked for more time, called the petitioner, already had all the information. The court said, “SBI, you have to share these details by the end of the day on March 12, 2024. The EC will then gather the information and put it on their website by 5 pm on March 15, 2024.”
The group of judges, led by Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud, scolded SBI for not following the earlier order to give all details of electoral bond purchases to the EC by March 6. The court warned SBI that they might take action if SBI doesn’t follow the instructions in this order.
On February 15, the Supreme Court said no to the electoral bond scheme, calling it against the constitution. The court told SBI to share all details of electoral bond purchases since April 12, 2019, with the EC by March 6. The court also said this information should be on the EC website by March 13.
SBI went to the Court on March 4, asking for more time because collecting the information takes a lot of time. They said this is because of rules about keeping donors’ names secret.
The judges scolded SBI for asking for time until June 30 to share the details, saying, “What have you done in the last 26 days? Your request doesn’t say anything about that. This is a serious matter, and our decision was clear,” said Justice Sanjiv Khanna.
Harish Salve, who was speaking for SBI, said they needed more time to gather all the information because it’s a sensitive matter, and donor details are kept in sealed covers at specific places to keep them secret.
Chief Justice DY Chandrachud said, “You’re saying details were kept in a sealed cover and sent to the Mumbai Branch. We didn’t ask you to match the information. We just wanted SBI to share clear details of donors. Why aren’t you following our decision?”
Justice Khanna added, “All the details are in a sealed cover, and you just need to open it and share the information.”
The judges told SBI to share the information plainly, following the court’s decision.
They also said no to a request from the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) against SBI.
