Why did the Supreme Court reject SBI’s plea seeking extension of time to disclose electoral bonds data? | Explained

Two NGOs have moved the Supreme Court against SBI for not complying with the Court’s deadline to furnish details about purchased electoral bonds. We explore why SBI has sought time and what the petition seeks.

The story so far:

On March 11, the Supreme Court dismissed a plea by the State Bank of India (SBI) to extend the deadline for providing details of electoral bonds purchased anonymously and their encashment by political parties to June 30, 2024. A five-judge Bench headed by the Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud gave the bank 24 hours, that is, by the close of business hours on March 12, to provide the details to the Election Commission of India (ECI).

The petition was filed in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s verdict on February 15 striking down the electoral bonds scheme, where the Court had directed the SBI to furnish details of the bonds to the ECI by March 6, 2024. These details were to include the date of purchase of each bond, the name of the purchaser of the bond and the denomination of the bond purchased. The ECI was subsequently ordered to publish all such information shared by the SBI on its official website by March 13, 2024.

The court was also hearing a contempt plea filed by NGOs — Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and Common Cause — against the SBI Chairman Dinesh Kumar Khera that contended that the bank was deliberately trying to ensure that details of donors and the amounts contributed to political parties anonymously were not disclosed to the public before the Lok Sabha elections due in April-May. Analysis reveals that the BJP was the scheme’s greatest beneficiary.

Watch | Supreme Court verdict on electoral bonds scheme

On March 4, the SBI filed a nine-page application before the Court seeking time till June 30 to provide the ECI with the required details regarding the purchased electoral bonds. The bank said that the information and documents were scattered across its various branches and decoding them was a “time-consuming exercise.”

According to the public sector bank, not only were the details not maintained centrally at one place, but the data related to the issuance of the bond and data related to the redemption of the bond were recorded “in two different silos.” This was done to ensure that donors’ anonymity was protected, it said. The Court was also apprised that donor details were kept in a sealed cover at the designated branches and all such sealed covers were then deposited in its main branch located in Mumbai. “It can thus be noted that both sets of information were being stored independently of each other. Thus, to re-match them would be a task requiring a significant amount of effort... the retrieval of information from each silo and the procedure of matching the information of one silo to that of the other would be a time-consuming exercise,” its plea said.