Today, the Supreme Court is set to hear an application from the State Bank of India, requesting an extension to submit information regarding electoral bonds. Initially, the court had set a deadline of March 6 for the submission of these details. However, the bank is now seeking an extension until June 30 to fulfill this requirement.
Here are the Top points in this big story:
- At 10:30 am today, a five-judge Constitution bench, led by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud and including Justices Sanjiv Khanna, BR Gavai, JB Pardiwala, and Manoj Misra, will convene to address the issue.
- Before the electoral bond scheme was terminated last month, the bench had instructed the national bank to provide information on each electoral bond cashed by political parties.
- Additionally, the court will address a separate plea by non-profit organizations Association for Democratic Reforms and Common Cause, which have requested contempt proceedings against the SBI. The petitioners claim that the bank intentionally disregarded the court's order to submit the details by March 6.
- On February 15, the bench had scrapped the Centre's electoral bonds scheme that allowed anonymous political funding. The judges had called it "unconstitutional".
- The court had previously stated that electoral bonds infringe upon people's right to information and violate Article 14 of the Constitution, which guarantees equality. Additionally, the court noted that electoral bonds undermine the principle of free and fair elections as enshrined in the constitution.
- The court had directed the Election Commission to provide details regarding donors, the donated amounts, and the recipients. It emphasized that this information should be publicly available on the Commission's website by March 13.
- On March 4, the SBI petitioned the Supreme Court to extend the deadline until June 30, citing the time-consuming nature of retrieving the information. The bank explained that the requirement to maintain anonymity has complicated the process.
- Pointing out that as a fully computerised bank, the SBI can have all the details with a few clicks, the Congress said, "SBI operates 48 crore bank accounts, 66,000 ATMs and has nearly 23,000 branches and this SBI needs five months to give data on just 22,217 electoral bonds".