The State Bank of India (SBI) on Thursday submitted complete details of the electoral bonds including the unique numbers to the Election Commission of India (ECI) in compliance of the Supreme Court order.
The Supreme Court on March 18 had asked the SBI to make a complete disclosure of all details of the electoral bonds which are in its possession. Earlier, the SBI had submitted the details of the purchasers of the electoral bonds and the amount and the fund the parties received through it, separately.
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What will these details make clear about the electoral bonds?
The disclosure of all the details including the unique numbers will make clear various things about the electoral bonds, including the name of the purchaser of a electoral bond, the denomination and the specific number of the bond, the name of the party that has encashed the bond, the last four digits of the bank account number of the political parties, the denomination and the number of bonds encashed.
Case so far:
Earlier, the Supreme Court had pulled up SBI for not disclosing all electoral bonds details.
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"The complete bank account numbers and KYC details of the political parties are not being made public as it may compromise the security of the account (cyber security). Similarly, KYC details of purchasers are also not being made public for security reasons, apart from the fact that such information of not fed/collated in the system. However, they are not necessary for identifying the political parties," the SBI had said in its affidavit to the Supreme Court.
However, the Supreme Court was miffed with SBI for not disclosing all electoral bonds details, saying that the bank should not be selective in disclosing the details.
It directed SBI to disclose all details of electoral bonds in its procession, including the unique alphanumeric number and the serial number, if any, of the bonds redeemed.
The Apex Court had also directed SBI Chairman to file an affidavit by 5 pm, Thursday, March 21, indicating that SBI has disclosed all details of electoral bonds which were in its possession and custody and no details have been withheld. The top court said the Election Commission shall upload the details on its website forthwith upon receipt of information from the SBI.
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Following the Supreme Court directive, the SBI which was the authorised seller of now-scrapped electoral bonds, had shared the data with the poll panel on March 12 after its plea for an extension of time to disclose details was rejected by the top court.
In a mega verdict delivered on February 15, a five-judge Constitution bench had scrapped the Centre's electoral bonds scheme that allowed anonymous political funding, calling it "unconstitutional" and ordered disclosure by the EC of donors, the amount donated by them and the recipients.
