The Supreme Court has turned down the State Bank of India’s (SBI) application seeking an extension until 30 June for providing details of electoral bonds.

The apex court on Monday directed the state-owned lender to disclose electoral bonds data, such as the names of donors and recipients, to the Election Commission (EC) by the close of business hours on 12 March. Failing this, the bank would face contempt proceedings. The EC needs to publish the details by 15 March.

On 15 February, the SC struck down the electoral bonds scheme saying that it was unconstitutional and anonymous electoral bonds are violative of the right to information and Article 19(1)(a). The top court also ordered the issuing bank, SBI, to provide the details of electoral bonds purchased since 12 April 2019 to the EC by 6 March.

However, two days before the deadline, the SBI moved the SC seeking an extension until 30 June citing ‘complexity of decoding and compiling data’ from the sale of these bonds.

The Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and the CPI(M), the petitioners against the scheme, moved contempt petitions. 

A bench of Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, and Justices Sanjiv Khanna, B.R. Gavai, J.B. Pardiwala, and Manoj Misra was hearing SBI’s extension plea on 11 March.

What will come out in the public on 12 March

SBI and the EC will have to make public the date of purchase of an electoral bond, the name of the purchaser and the denomination for each electoral bond in one list, and the details of every electoral bond encashed by political parties, including the date and denomination of the encashment, from April 12, 2019, onwards. 

The SBI had argued that it would take time to match the details of donors and parties for the 22,217 electoral bonds in question. 

What will not come out on 12 March

Chandrachud told the bank on Monday that the “judgment does not tell you to do the matching exercise”.

“You are the State Bank of India, a public-sector bank. There should be some candour from your side. We want to know what you have been doing for the past 26 days. There is not a word about it in your application,” Chandrachud remarked.

This suggests that the matching details of donors and parties for the electoral bonds will not be available for the public on 12 March. In other words, SBI does not have to disclose which bonds went to which parties.

What the SC told SBI

The apex court questioned SBI’s silence on the progress made in the 26 days since the judgment was issued. 

“Our judgment was issued on February 15. Today, it is March 11. In the last 26 days, what is the extent of matching done by you? The affidavit is silent on this. We expect a degree of candour from the State Bank of India,” the court said.

Senior advocate Harish Salve, representing the SBI, told the court that the details were available but the difficulty was caused because of the siloisation of the information recorded by the SBI.

“We were told that this was supposed to be secret. That is how we devised the mechanism. We don’t want to now create any havoc by making any mistake…” Salve argued. 

“There is no question of any mistake. You have the KYC. You are the Number 1 bank in the country. We expect you to handle it,” Justice Khanna told Salve.