Electoral Bonds Case: SBI Chairman Files Compliance Affidavit Before Supreme Court
As per the affidavit, 22,217 bonds were purchased between April 2019 and February 2024.
State Bank of India Chairperson Dinesh Kumar Khara has filed an affidavit signifying the bank's compliance with the top court's orders in the electoral bonds matter.
In his affidavit, Khara has stated that SBI had ready records of the date of purchase of bonds, the denominations and the name of the purchasers. In relation to political parties, it had ready records pertaining to the date of encashment and the respective denominations, it said.
As per the affidavit, 22,217 bonds were purchased between April 2019 and February 2024, and a total of 22,030 bonds were redeemed by political parties.
This information has been furnished to the Election Commission of India as per the court's orders, Khara said.
The affidavit also states that the amount of the electoral bonds which were not encashed by the political parties, within the validity period of 15 days during this period, have been transferred to Prime Minister's National Relief Fund.
Last month, the top court struck down the electoral bond scheme in a unanimous ruling, calling it unconstitutional.
The electoral bond scheme is violative of the right to information and the right to freedom of speech and expression provided under Article 19(1)(a), ruled a five-judge constitution bench headed by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud.
Consequently, the court directed SBI to furnish the electoral bond data to the Election Commission of India by March 6, which in turn was supposed to make the data public by March 13.
Citing certain 'practical difficulties' with the decoding exercise and the timeline fixed for it, SBI sought an extension of the March 6 deadline until June 30.
However, the court said that the bank was not required to undertake any kind of decoding exercise and all that it had to do was make a 'plain disclosure' of the data to the ECI.
Consequently, the court rejected SBI's plea for an extension and directed it to furnish the data by March 12, which in turn has to be made public by the EC on its official website by 5:00 p.m. on March 15.
