The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed State Bank of India’s application seeking to extend the deadline to furnish details of electoral bonds including names of purchasers and political parties that encashed them, holding that the information was “readily available” with the bank.
SBI must submit the details from April 12, 2019 by “the close of business hours” on March 12 (Tuesday), failing which the state-run bank’s chairman and its managing director could face contempt of court proceedings, the top court said.
The bank had sought time till June 30 to provide the information, telling the court in a petition last week that “decoding” the data and “matching donors to the donations would be a complex process”.
A five-member bench headed by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud also directed the Election Commission of India to put the information provided by SBI on its official website by 5 pm on March 15.
Pushing the deadline to end-June would have delayed publishing of the information to after the Lok Sabha elections, expected to be held in April-May. For now, the top court refrained from initiating contempt proceedings against SBI for not complying with the deadline of March 6 set in the judgement passed on February 15.
“Though we are not exercising the contempt jurisdiction, we place SBI on notice that this court will proceed against it for wilful disobedience of court if it does not adhere to the directions issued by the Court,” the bench said in its order.
Striking down the government’s electoral bond scheme on February 15, the Constitution bench had directed SBI to furnish by March 6 the “details” of electoral bonds, including the “date of purchase of each electoral bond, the name of the purchaser of the bond and the denomination of the electoral bond purchased”. The bank was also directed to submit the “details” of political parties that received contributions through electoral bonds to the Election Commission of India.
Providing this information may not connect the purchaser of the bond with the political party that encashed it, if SBI does not divulge the “unique number” of each electoral bond.
In its petition last week, the bank had said it needed to decode details of 22,217 bonds, which would involve decoding, compiling and comparing 44,434 (twice the number of electoral bonds issued) information sets because the details relating to buyers and recipients were kept in two different information silos.
On Monday, the court, however, said it had asked SBI for a “plain disclosure” of donations and “not to conduct a matching exercise”.
Speaking to ET, advocate Prashant Bhushan, counsel for one of the petitioners, said “the details to be furnished by SBI must include the unique number”. He said the unique number would help match the purchaser of the bond with the political party that encashed it. Bhushan warned that if SBI did not disclose this, he would again move the top court seeking contempt of court proceedings against the bank and its chairman.
“The whole object (of disclosure of information) is that people should know who donated money to which political parties. The purpose will be defeated if the unique number is not divulged by SBI. It will be gross contempt,” Bhushan told ET.
Even if SBI does not conduct the matching, one can ascertain the money donated by an entity or individual to a political party by using the unique number, he said.
Appearing on behalf of SBI, senior advocate Harish Salve pressed for an extension. Assertion of who contributed to which political party is a time-consuming process, he said. “Irrespective of the unique number not discernible to the naked eye would enable the disclosure; the submission of SBI in the application sufficiently indicates that information which is directed by the court is readily available” with it, the court said.
SBI reprimanded
The bench chided SBI for merely seeking extension of the deadline without disclosing the “extent of matching” it has done in the past 26 days since the day of the judgement asking it to provide the information. “Our judgement is of February 15. In the last 26 days what extent of matching has been done by you. What steps have you taken in the last 26 days? We expect a degree of candour on the part of SBI,” the CJI verbally remarked.
Justice BR Gavai, part of the bench, said conducting a “matching exercise” was not a part of the direction issued by the top court. “Don’t go by what is suggested. We have spoken in black and white. What extent have you reached (in matching the bonds),” he asked.
“You accept that there is no difficulty in giving details of who purchased, etc… So in 26 days, at least 10,000, etc., must have been collated,” justice Sanjiv Khanna said.
