ELECTORAL BONDS: DISCLOSED ON SUPREME COURT’S ORDER ON 15th MARCH.

The Supreme Court of India on 15th March, Friday issued a notice to SBI ( State Bank of India ) on the matter of disclosing the unique alphanumeric code on the electoral bonds that can be used to match each electoral bond donation to the party that has received it. SBI, on Tuesday had informed the Court that it had furnished details of the purchase and redemption of bonds to the Election Commission of India (ECI) as directed by the court. The Electoral Bond Scheme is a scheme that allows individuals and businesses to donate anonymously to political parties.

Transparency rights activists believe that the discrepancy in the list could be because SBI has only released the data starting from 12th April, 2019. Bonds are valid for 15 days from the purchasing date, hence, it is possible that out of the bonds that were purchased at the starting of April, some of them were redeemed by parties after 12th April because of which only their redemption data is available now and not their sale data. Whether this discrepancy could be explained in this manner can only be clarified by SBI by releasing all the missing data from the 1st year of the electoral bonds scheme.

Why is it problematic?

The Supreme Court, in its judgment striking down the scheme said, voters have the right to know if there have been any quid pro quo arrangements between business houses and parties in government. However, SBI had failed to clearly demarcate who has paid whom since they provided two separate lists.

After hearing a petition by the Election Commission, the Supreme Court said that the data provided by SBI was incomplete and went harsh on them for not sharing the complete data on electoral bonds while directing them to share all details on the donations made in the previous 5 years. The 5 judge bench, headed by CJI DY Chandrachud, told them to disclose the numbers as well. “Who is appearing for the State Bank of India? They have not disclosed the bond numbers. It has to be disclosed by the State Bank of India,” said CJI.

Supreme court’s decision:

The Court bench, in its notice to SBI has asked them to explain the lapse during the next hearing on 18th March. The Electoral Bonds were introduced by the Bharatiya Janata Party ( BJP ) in 2018 as an alternative to cash donations to bring transparency in political funding. The Scheme however was struck down by the Supreme last month, terming it as unconstitutional. 

Congress general secretary, Jairam Ramesh said that their party continues to demand unique bond numbers, so as to precisely match donors to recipients. The Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman said that the narrative of a link between the raids and donations was just assumptions when it was revealed by the Election Commissioner that 15 out to 30 top donor companies had faced action from probe agencies. She also said that the previous electoral trusts scheme, introduced by the UPA government in 2013 was “completely imperfect”.