New Delhi: Association for Democratic Reforms has filed a contempt plea before the Supreme Court against the State Bank of India's non-adherence to the March 6 deadline for publishing details of electoral bonds. The SBI has also approached the Supreme Court seeking an extension to furnish these details. Advocate Prashant Bhushan on Thursday mentioned the ADR's plea before a bench headed by Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud.
Bhushan, representing ADR, said that SBI has filed an application for extension which is likely to be listed on Monday. He said, meanwhile, ADR has filed a contempt petition. “We are asking that our application be also listed along with that”, said Bhushan. The bench agreed to examine the plea.
The bench asked the advocate representing the NGO to send an email and assured that it would be listed on March 11 for hearing.
The State Bank of India has moved the Supreme Court seeking an extension of time till June 30, 2024, to furnish information regarding electoral bonds to the Election Commission of India (ECI).
The apex court, in a judgement delivered by a constitution bench on February 15, had directed the SBI is required to furnish the information to ECI by March 6. The apex court had struck down the electoral bond scheme as unconstitutional.
The SBI, in an application filed in the apex court, said “It is submitted that due to the stringent measures undertaken to ensure that the identity of the donors was kept anonymous, ‘decoding’ of the Electoral bonds and the matching of the donor to the donations made would be a complex process”.
“The timeline of three weeks fixed by the court in its judgement dated 15.02.2024 would not be sufficient for the entire exercise to be completed. Therefore, an extension of time may kindly be granted by this Court in order to enable the SBI to comply with the Judgement”, said the application filed by the public sector bank.
The ADR’s contempt plea said: “It is submitted that the said application is mala-fide and demonstrates a wilful and deliberate disobedience & defiance of the judgement passed by the Constitution Bench of this Court. It is further a clear attempt to undermine the authority of this Court”.
“It is submitted that the State Bank of India has deliberately filed the said Application for Direction dated 04.03.2024 at the last moment in order to ensure that the details of donor and the amount of donations are not disclosed to the public before the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. The said application neither discloses the progress made so far and steps taken to comply with the judgement dated 15.02.2024, nor it shows even part-compliance of the judgement passed by this Court”, said the contempt plea.
The plea said that the SBI has the record of the unique number allotted to each Electoral Bond and the KYC details of its purchaser. “That the requirement of the KYC is mentioned in Section 4 of the EB scheme itself, therefore, the SBI is well aware of the identity of purchasers of each Electoral Bond,” it added.
“It is submitted that the electoral bonds are completely traceable which is evident from the fact that SBI maintains a secret number-based record of donors who buy bonds, and the political parties they donate to”, said the contempt plea.
