The State Bank of India (SBI) has moved the Supreme Court for an extension till June 30 to comply with the latter’s recent judgment directing the bank to provide details of all electoral bonds encashed from April 2019 onwards.
While delivering the judgement, the top court had asked SBI to disclose the details of donations through electoral bonds and names of political parties which received the contributions to the Election Commission by March 6. Further, the apex court asked the poll panel to publish these details on the website by March 13, 2024.
SBI’s plea states that due to stringent measures undertaken to ensure that the identity of the donors was kept anonymous, “decoding’ the electoral bonds and matching donors to the donations made would be a complex process.
“It submitted that the data related to the issuance of the bond and the data related to the redemption of the bond was kept recorded in two different silos. No central database was maintained. This was done to ensure that donors’ anonymity would be protected. It is submitted that donor details were kept in a sealed cover at the designated branches and all such sealed covers were deposited in the Main Branch of the Applicant bank, which is located in Mumbai,” the plea by the SBI said.
