Electoral bonds details: SC to hear contempt plea against SBI on March 11

New Delhi: The Supreme Court will to take up a contempt petition against the State Bank of India for “wilfully and deliberately disobeying” the directive of the apex court to furnish details of all electoral bonds on March 11.

A bench of Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud and Justices Sanjiv Khanna, B R Gavai, J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra would consider on Monday the contempt plea by NGO Association for Democratic Reforms and others, along with the SBI's application seeking time to disclose the details by June 30.

The application by the ADR said the SBI “deliberately” filed a plea seeking time till June 30 to provide details of the electoral bonds just two days before the March 6 deadline “in order to ensure that the details of the donors and the amount of donations are not disclosed to the public before the upcoming Lok Sabha elections”.

The ADR, which was the main petitioner in the original plea, said that the SBI’s move “betrays its clear motive to stifle citizen’s voice and right to audit actions of the political class and therefore it should be held as serious breach of contempt”.

Advocate Prashant Bhushan had on Thursday mentioned the plea in the apex court following which a bench headed by Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud asked him to send an email and said it would be listed. 

The petition said the bank is in possession of a unique number allotted to each electoral bond and the KYC details of the purchaser. The petition further said it is “inconceivable that the SBI does not have the information readily available within its database”.

The top court had February 15, 2024 judgement, declared the electoral bonds scheme for donation to political parties as unconstitutional. It has directed SBI to furnish all the information on bonds to the Election Commission by March 6, 2024 to be put on website of the poll panel.

In its plea, the bank cited practical difficulties with the decoding exercise, which, it claimed, was a complex and contended the timeline fixed for it by the top court was not sufficient.