The Supreme Court of India on March 11 dismissed the State Bank of India's (SBI) application seeking an extension of time to disclose the details of electoral bonds. The apex court has directed the bank to disclose the details by the close of business hours on March 12.
The top court has also asked the Election Commission of India to put the information about Electoral Bonds on its website by March 15.
"Submissions of SBI in application indicates that info sought is readily available. Thus, the application by SBI seeking extension of time until June 30 is dismissed. SBI is directed to disclose the details by the close of business hours of March 12, 2024," the top Court said in the order as reported by Bar & Bench.
The Supreme Court has also warned that it will initiate contempt proceedings against the government-run SBI if it does not comply with its orders and provide the information by tomorrow, Tuesday, March 12.
“The SBI shall file an affidavit of its Chairman and Managing Director on compliance with the directions issued above. While we are not inclined to exercise the contempt jurisdiction at this time, we place SBI on notice that this Court may be inclined to proceed against it for wilful disobedience if SBI does not comply with the directions by the timelines indicated in this order,” the court said as reported by LiveLaw.
The SBI had approached the court for an extension, allowing it to disclose the details by June 30. The matter was heard by a five-judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud.
On February 15, in a landmark verdict, a five-judge constitution bench scrapped the Centre's electoral bonds scheme, which allowed anonymous political funding, calling it "unconstitutional" and ordered disclosure by the Election Commission of the donors, the amount donated by them, and the recipients by March 13.
The top court subsequently directed the SBI, the authorised financial institution under the scheme, to submit by March 6 the details of the electoral bonds purchased from April 12, 2019, till date to the Election Commission, which was asked to publish the information on its official website by March 13.
The SBI contended that 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.
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