The Supreme Court will also hear a separate plea seeking initiation of contempt proceedings against the SBI alleging that it "wilfully and deliberately" disobeyed the direction of the top court to submit details of the contributions made through electoral bonds to various political parties to the ECI by March 6.

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

Apex court will also hear a plea seeking initiation of contempt proceedings against CBI on March 11

A five-judge bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud will also hear a separate plea seeking initiation of contempt proceedings against the SBI alleging that the nationalised bank “wilfully and deliberately” disobeyed the direction of the top court to submit details of the contributions made through electoral bonds to various political parties to the Election Commission of India (ECI) by March 6.

Apex court struck down Electoral Bonds Scheme on February 15

A five-judge constitution bench headed by CJI Chandrachud had on February 15 struck down the Electoral Bonds Scheme, terming it unconstitutional and violative of freedom of speech and expression under Article 19(1)(a) of Constitution. The bench, while hearing a bunch of pleas, including NGO Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), had ordered closure of the scheme forthwith.

The five-judge bench said that anonymous electoral bonds are violative of right to information and freedom of speech under the Constitution of India and that political parties are relevant political unit in the political process and information about political funding is essential to exercise correct choice of voting.

Apex court directed SBI to submit details of contributions received through scheme to ECI by March 6

The constitution bench had directed the SBI to submit details of political parties which received contributions through electoral bonds since April 12, 2019 till date to the ECI by March 6. It had further directed the SBI to disclose details of each electoral bond encased by political parties, including date of encashment, denomination to the ECI, which was directed to publish the information provided by the SBI regarding the electoral bonds on its official website within one week of receiving this information from the SBI.

SBI filed an application on March 4 seeking extension of time

The SBI, however, filed an application before the apex court on March 4 seeking seeking extension of time till June 30 to disclose the details of each electoral bond encashed by political parties, submitting that retrieval of information from “each silo” and the procedure of matching the information of one silo to that of the other would be a time-consuming exercise.

NGO ADR filed a petition seeking initiation of contempt proceedings against SBI

After SBI’s application before the apex court seeking extension of time, NGO ADR filed a petition against the SBI seeking initiation of contempt proceedings for its failure to meet the March 6 deadline set by the five-judge constitution bench for disclosing the details of each electoral bond encashed by political parties.

Taking note of the submissions of Bhushan, CJI Chandrachud told Bhushan, “Please send an e-mail. I will pass the order.”