New Delhi: State Bank of India on Wednesday filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court saying that the direction to disclose the electoral bonds data to the Election Commission has been complied with.
The SBI’s Chairman Dinesh Kumar Khara, in the compliance affidavit, said that they have submitted to the Election Commission of India: the date of purchase of each electoral bond, the name of the purchaser, denomination of the bond purchased, the date of encashment of the electoral bonds, the name of political parties who have received the contributions, and the denominations of the bonds.
“Data has been furnished in respect of bonds purchased and redeemed between April 12, 2019, to February 15, 2024”, said the SBI, adding that the information was made available to the ECI in digital form.
The number of bonds that were purchased was 22,217 during the period April 01, 2019, till February 15, 2024: the total number of bonds purchased between April 1, 2019, and April 11, 2019, was 3346 and redeemed was 1609. Between April 12, 2019 and February 15, 2024, the number of bonds purchased was 18871 and redeemed 20,421.
A total number of 22,217 bonds were purchased during the period between April 1, 2019 and February 15, 2024, and a total of 22,030 bonds were redeemed.
The SBI said the electoral bonds which were not encashed by the political party within the validity period of fifteen days during this period have been transferred to the Prime Minister's National Relief Fund, as per the Gazette Notification no 20 dated January 2, 2018.
The affidavit was filed by the SBI chairman in accordance with an order issued by the apex court on March 11.
On Monday, the apex court directed the State Bank of India to disclose the details of the electoral bonds encashed by political parties to the Election Commission of India by the close of business hours on March 12. The apex court warned SBI that the court may proceed against it for “wilful disobedience” if it failed to comply with its directions and deadlines. On Tuesday, SBI complied with the apex court judgment and sent the details of electoral bonds to the ECI.
A five-judge bench led by Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud, while dismissing the SBI’s plea, seeking an extension of time till June 30 to disclose the details, also directed the ECI to publish the information shared by the bank on its official website by 5 p.m. on March 15.
On February 15, the same five-judge constitution bench had scrapped the electoral bonds scheme, which allowed anonymous political funding, calling it “unconstitutional”, and ordered disclosure by the EC of donors, the amount donated by them and the recipients by March 13.
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