The Supreme Court on February 15 had scrapped the Centre's electoral bonds scheme of anonymous political funding, calling it "unconstitutional" and ordering disclosure by the EC of the donors, the amount donated by them and the recipients by March 13.

The Supreme Court will hear on March 11 an application by the State Bank of India (SBI) seeking extension of time till June 30 to disclose details of each electoral bond encashed by political parties before the scheme was scrapped last month.

The five-judge bench, headed by Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud, will also hear a separate plea by NGO Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) that has sought initiation of contempt action against the SBI alleging it “wilfully and deliberately” disobeyed the apex court’s direction to submit details of the contributions made to political parties through electoral bonds to the Election Commission by March 6.

The top court had struck down the electoral bond scheme on February 15 and asked the SBI to furnish the details of the bonds purchased since April 12, 2019, to the ECI by March 6.

But in an application filed on March 4, the SBI sought time until June 30 to furnish the details, saying it is a “time consuming exercise” as there are “certain practical difficulties with the decoding exercise… due to the stringent measures undertaken to ensure that the identity of the donors was kept anonymous”.

On March 6, ADR filed a contempt petition in the court terming the SBI’s request for more time as “mala fide and” stating that it “demonstrates a wilful and deliberate disobedience and defiance of the judgement passed by the Constitution Bench”. The NGO contended that SBI “has deliberately filed” the application “at the last moment in order to ensure that the details of donors and the amount of donations are not disclosed to the public before the upcoming Lok Sabha elections” and that it “neither discloses the progress made so far and steps taken to comply with the judgement… nor it shows even part-compliance of the judgment”.