ADR approached the Supreme Court demanding contempt action against SBI for not submitting details of electoral bonds to ECI, defying court's directive.

A day after the deadline for the State Bank of India (SBI) to submit details of electoral bonds (EBs) purchased since April 12, 2019, to the Election Commission of India (ECI) ended, the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) approached the Supreme Court on Thursday demanding contempt action against the state-owned bank for defying the court’s directive./p>

ADR, a non-profit organisation which is the lead petitioner in the judgment striking down the Centre’s 2018 EB scheme, mentioned the matter before Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud, seeking a hearing on March 11 when SBI’s application for an extension till June 30 is likely to be taken up.

Advocate Prashant Bhushan submitted before the CJI that ADR has sought initiation of contempt proceedings against SBI for not abiding by the court-mandated deadline of March 6 to submit to ECI full details of EBs purchased.

Responding, justice Chandrachud, who headed the bench that delivered the landmark EB verdict, said that the contempt plea will come up with SBI’s plea if the petition has been duly numbered and verified. Bhushan assured the court that he would complete the formalities.

On March 4, SBI moved its plea for an extension, submitting that “decoding” the data and matching donors to the donations would be a “complex process”, a claim that has been refuted by several banking experts. The application, if allowed, will mean that the disclosure of donors and recipients of EBs will come only after the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, which are expected to be conducted between April and May this year.

On February 15, a five-judge bench struck down the Centre’s 2018 EB scheme of political funding, declaring it to be “unconstitutional” because it completely anonymised contributions made to political parties, and added that restricting black money or illegal election financing — some of the articulated objectives of the scheme — did not justify violating voters’ right to information in a disproportionate manner.

The bench directed SBI – the only designated EB-issuing bank – to stop issuing EBs, adding that the bank should submit details of EBs purchased since April 12, 2019, till that date to the poll watchdog by March 6. By March 13, the judgment ordered all funding received by political parties – since the court issued an interim direction to parties to submit such information with ECI – to be made public on ECI’s website.

SBI claimed it needs to break down the details of 22,217 EBs, which would involve decoding, compiling and comparing 44,434 information sets because the details relating to buyers and recipients of bonds are kept in two different information silos. ADR’s contempt plea on Thursday labelled the request as “mala fide” and an attempt to thwart transparency efforts before the upcoming elections.

ADR said that SBI India possesses the infrastructure necessary to swiftly compile and disclose information on electoral bonds. “SBI’s IT system, designed for managing electoral bonds, is already in place and can easily generate reports based on the unique numbers assigned to each bond... the bank has records of the unique numbers allotted to each electoral bond and the Know Your Customer (KYC) details of purchasers,” stated the plea. Adding that SBI has a vast network of branches and a well-functioning IT system, the contempt plea said the bank can compile data for about 22,217 EBs easily.

Stressing the significance of transparency in political financing, ADR argued that voters have a fundamental right to know about the substantial sums of money contributed to political parties through EBs and that the lack of transparency goes against the essence of participatory democracy enshrined in Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution.

In its extension plea moved on March 4, SBI sought to bring to the court’s notice “certain practical difficulties with the decoding exercise and the timeline fixed for it”. The public sector bank said that not only were details of purchases made at SBI branches not maintained centrally, but the data related to the issuance of the bond and the data related to the redemption of the bond were also recorded in two different silos.

“No central database was maintained. This was done so as 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 said.

At the other end, SBI said that, at the time of redemption by a political party, the original bond, and the pay-in slip would be stored in a sealed cover and sent to the SBI’s main branch in Mumbai.

SBI also said that some of the details such as number of bonds etc. are stored digitally while the other set of details such as name of purchaser, KYC etc. are stored physically. “The purpose of not storing all details digitally was to ensure that it cannot be gathered easily to achieve the object of the scheme,” claimed the plea, adding the timeline of three weeks fixed by the court in its February 15 judgment would not be sufficient for the entire exercise to be completed.

Congress leader Jairam Ramesh hit out at the government in a post on X, saying, “The Pradhan Mantri Chanda Chipao Yojana, implemented by the SBI, is built on lie.”