SBI Misses Deadline for Electoral Bonds Disclosure; Opposition Calls It Dubious
Image Source: India Today
The State Bank of India failed to share the details of all the electoral bonds cashed in by the political parties; the deadline for the disclosure was on Wednesday. The details would show the denominations and the beneficiaries of the anonymous donations.
CJI DY Chandrachud said that the bench would consider a contempt petition against the SBI Chairman, which has been filed by one of the petitioners of the electoral bonds issue, Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR). Although the Election Commission of India, to whom details are meant to be submitted, has been strangely quiet about the whole debacle.
In the petition, ADR stated, “SBI has wilfully & deliberately disobeyed the judgment passed by the Constitution bench of this Hon’ble Court, and the same not only negates the right to information of the citizens but also wilfully undermines the authority of this Hon’ble Court.”
SBI had previously sought a fourth-month deferral for submitting the information, two days before the deadline, saying they needed until June to furnish it to ECI as decoding the data is a time-consuming process as there were more than 20 thousand bonds that were issued to various political parties; they claimed that all the encashed bonds information would have to be compiled and decoded into thousands of information sets.
The opposition threw shade at the government and accused them of trying to hide their real face right when Lok Sabha elections are right around the corner; Rahul Gandhi, in a social media post, said, “When the Supreme Court has said it is the right of the citizens to know the truth about electoral bonds, why does the State bank of India want that this information should not come public before the elections? Narendra Modi is leaving no stone unturned to hide the business of donations.”
Reportedly, an Insider who was the former General Secretary of the All India Bank Officers Confederation also cornered the government, calling it a complete lie; he stated, “An RTI query had revealed that the bank had updated its system for the electoral bonds scheme. How can the bank now say it needs more time? The moment a customer comes to purchase a bond, even if it is in physical form, it would be printed. Apart from that, A KYC norm would be followed, and the money would be transferred from somebody’s account. Automatically, it is updated on the system. Even when a political party is encashing the electoral bond, they have to come through the bank itself. The transaction cannot be held back, even for an hour. Mumbai branch has every detail of the transactions as it is accounted for.”
He further expressed more doubt, saying, “There is a system that has to be followed. Why should he try to help the government even when the Supreme Court has issued directions? It is very clear the time sought coincides with the date the elections would be over. They don’t want the public to know to whom these bonds were issued and to which political parties. Once the list comes out, we will know the parties bought the bonds.”
The Apex Court had last month scrapped the Electoral bonds scheme and deemed it unconstitutional; it had subsequently directed the State Bank of India to furnish all the information associated with the purchased bonds, like the name of the buyer, denomination of the bonds bought, and all the details of the recipients of the bonds to the Election Commissioner of India by March 6th. Turning a blind eye to such crucial information is a blatant violation of the right to information; the information would help the voter to reassess their political stances and make a more informed decision for the upcoming elections; however, they are instead being kept in the dark.
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