New Delhi : On Monday, the Supreme Court dismissed the State Bank of India’s (SBI) request for an extension to provide electoral bond details to the Election Commission. Instead, the court directed the largest bank in the country to submit the information by the close of business on Tuesday, March 12. The court cautioned that failure by the bank to comply by the end of business hours tomorrow could lead to contempt proceedings. The highest court also mandated the election commission to publish the information on its website by 5 pm on March 15.
The panel, comprising Justices Sanjiv Khanna, B R Gavai, J B Pardiwala, and Manoj Misra, deliberated on the points presented by senior advocate Harish Salve, who represented the party. Salve argued that additional time was necessary to compile and synchronize the data stored in two separate repositories across the bank’s branches.
The Supreme Court had instructed the State Bank of India (SBI) to reveal information about donors, the donated amounts, and the recipients by March 13. Last week, the SBI sought an extension from the court to postpone the deadline for disclosing bond details to June 30. In a groundbreaking decision on February 15, the Supreme Court declared the Centre’s electoral bonds scheme, which permitted anonymous political funding, as “unconstitutional” and nullified it.
The bench remarked, ‘In the past 26 days, what actions have you undertaken? Your application does not provide any information on that. The bench emphasized that the State Bank of India simply needs to open the sealed cover, organize the details, and provide the information to the Election Commission.
