A plea has been filed in the Supreme Court seeking a direction to disclose information on electoral bonds worth Rs 4,000 crore sold before April 2019.
On March 14, the Election Commission of India’s website displayed electoral bonds sold between April 12, 2019 and February 15, 2024.
According to the data uploaded by the poll panel, the buyers of electoral bonds include Grasim Industries, Megha Engineering, Piramal Enterprises, Torrent Power, Bharti Airtel, DLF Commercial Developers, Vedanta Ltd., Apollo Tyres, Lakshmi Mittal, Edelweiss, PVR, Keventer, Sula Wine, Welspun, and Sun Pharma.
The parties that redeemed electoral bonds include the BJP, Congress, AIADMK, BRS, Shiv Sena, TDP, YSR Congress, DMK, JDS, NCP, Trinamool Congress, JDU, RJD, AAP, and the Samajwadi Party, according to the data.
Citizens for Rights Trust filed the plea appealing to the apex court that there was no information on the 9,159 electoral bonds worth Rs 4,000 crore sold between March 2018 and April 2019.
“The State Bank of India has issued 28,030 bonds worth Rs 16,518 crores since March 2018. However, only the information relating to 18,871 bonds accounting for Rs 12,516 crores (issued between April 12, 2019, to February 15, 2024) have been uploaded by the Election Commission of India after the same was shared by the SBI,” the plea stated.
On March 11, the Supreme Court of India dismissed the SBI’s plea for an extension of time and directed it to furnish the details of electoral bonds to the Election Commission by March 12.
The apex court also asked the bank about the steps taken by it to comply with the directions given in its February 15 judgment.
“In the last 26 days, what steps have you taken? Your application is silent on that,” the bench said.
It asked the SBI to do a “plain disclosure” as per the court’s judgment.
What is electoral bond scheme?
An electoral bond allows individuals, corporations or organisations to contribute or donate money to any political party anonymously by purchasing bonds from the SBI.
According to the scheme, if the money donated is not encashed within 15 days, it will automatically be transferred to the Prime Minister Relief Fund.
The electoral bond scheme was introduced in the Parliament as part of the 2017 Union Budget by then Union finance minister Arun Jaitley.
