A bench headed by CJI Chandrachud also directed the Election Commission of India to publish details shared by the bank on its official website by 5 pm on March 15.

The Supreme Court of India on Monday dismissed the plea filed by the State Bank of India (SBI) seeking time till June 30 to disclose the data on the electoral bonds scheme, which is sought by the top court.

This was after the SBI said it can compile separate lists of the purchasers and redeemers within three weeks. However, the top court gave the bank just one day, pointing out that this information is readily available with the bank.

The apex court also said that it was putting the SBI 'on notice' and may initiate contempt proceedings against it if it fails to submit the data by close of business on Tuesday. The bench said the SBI shall file an affidavit of its chairman and managing director on compliance with the directions issued by the top court.

"SBI is directed to disclose the details by the close of business hours of March 12. As regards the Election Commission of India (ECI), we direct that it shall compile the information and publish the details no later than by 5 PM, March 15..." the court ordered.

During the hearing, the bench, also comprising Justices Sanjiv Khanna, B R Gavai, J B Pardiwala, and Manoj Misra, took note of the submissions of senior advocate Harish Salve, appearing for the SBI, that more time was needed for collating the details and matching them as the information was kept in two different silos with its branches. At the outset of the hearing today, the SBI claimed that over 22,000 bonds were issued, and hence, compilation and matching would be time consuming and a lengthy process.

Harish Salve further said if the matching exercise is to be done away with, the SBI can complete the exercise within three weeks.

The bench said it had not directed the SBI to match the details of donors and donee with other information. The SBI has to just open the sealed cover, collate the details and give the information to the Election Commission, the apex court said.

The Supreme Court also observed that there is a number assigned to electoral bonds. "It must be there in the record to find out." However, Salve said that the number is kept a secret, and to generate the number, there was a need to match the details.

The apex court also observed that the electoral bonds scheme stipulated that information furnished by the buyer of the bond shall be treated as confidential, and shall be disclosed only by orders of a court or law enforcement agencies. SBI is mandated to disclose info when demanded by a court, the bench asserted.

In a landmark verdict delivered on February 15, a five-judge Constitution bench had scrapped the Centre's electoral bonds scheme that allowed anonymous political funding, calling it "unconstitutional" and ordered disclosure by the ECI of donors, the amount donated by them and the recipients by March 13.

Ordering the closure of the scheme, the top court directed the SBI, the authorised financial institution under the scheme, to submit by March 6 the details of the electoral bonds purchased since April 12, 2019, till date to the Election Commission.

SBI counsel explains reason for delay; top court says 'just open up envelopes'

At the outset, SBI counsel Salve told the bench that the bank had stopped the issuance of electoral bonds as per the court's February 15 direction. "We need a little more time to comply with your lordships' order," he said.

Justice Chandrachud, while referring to the SBI's application, said as per the bank, the donor details were kept in a sealed cover in a designated branch of the bank.

In its application, the SBI had contended that the retrieval of information from "each silo" and the procedure of matching the information of one silo to that of the other would be a time-consuming exercise.

Salve said SBI is willing to give "the detail of purchase, name of the purchaser and the denominations". He said the delay was on account of trying to match the purchasers and the redeemers of the bonds. "If we don't have to create a bridge between the two, then, within three [more] weeks, we can give everything," Salve offered, when Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dhananjaya Chandrachud asked what the reason for the delay was.

At this, the top court asked why SBI needs three weeks for it, given that both are already available [to the court]. To this, CJI Chandrachud further said that the court had not asked for the connection. It had only asked for separate details of the two parties.

"Just open up the envelopes and submit the information," suggested the bench today.

The judgement/order of the Supreme Court today is a tight slap on the SBI for its defiance of the earlier judgement/order of the Supreme Court

This was a self-inflicted stain

The order of the Supreme Court today gives an opportunity to SBI to wipe the stain and redeem itself…

— P. Chidambaram (@PChidambaram_IN) March 11, 2024

At this, Salve said it will also be difficult to give details of who has purchased (created) which bond.

The top court then specifically asked if the SBI can give details of who purchased how much worth of bonds. To which Salve said that the transaction numbers of each purchase transaction cannot be easily disclosed.

The top court also asked why the Assistant General Manager had filed the application. Salve said the relatively lower ranking official filed the application since he's the man in charge of keeping the accounts.

The court also expressed its consternation at the SBI not mentioning what it had been doing for the past 26 days when it asked for more time.

SBI's application said that due to stringent measures undertaken to ensure that the identity of the donors was kept anonymous, "decoding" the electoral bonds and matching the donors to the donations would be a complex process.

"It submitted that the data related to the issuance of the bond and the data related to the redemption of the bond was kept recorded in two different silos. No central database was maintained," it said.

"It is submitted that donor details were kept in a sealed cover at the designated branches and all such sealed covers were deposited in the main branch of the applicant bank, which is located in Mumbai," it said.

Defiant approach by SBI towards citizen's Right to know: ADR

Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), which is the lead petitioner in the electoral bonds case, had knocked the doors of the Supreme Court seeking its direction for initiation of contempt of court proceedings against the SBI for failing to disclose the data as directed by the SC by March 6.

The ADR in its plea filed before the top court said that the SBI has illegally, wilfully and deliberately disobeyed the apex court's February 15 judgment in the electoral bonds case. 

The ADR, in its plea, alleged that the SBI application is malafide and demonstrates wilful and deliberate disobedience and defiance of the judgment. "Defiant approach by SBI towards citizen's Right to know, is reprehensible and betrays its motive to stifle citizen’s voice and right to audit actions of the political class," the ADR, in its plea said before the apex court. 

The ADR's contempt plea alleged that the data is easily available with the SBI, but it had failed to act as directed by the court. It has thereby sought the court's direction for disclosure of bond data by the SBI forthwith.

The ADR claimed in its plea that SBI has sought an extension of time at the 'last minute' to avoid donor detail disclosure ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, thus betraying their motive to stifle voters' right to know.

The ADR alleged that it's 'inconceivable' that around 2.6 lakh SBI employees could not even locate and share data within three weeks to the apex court, inspite of the fact that technology gave the choice that bonds are readily traceable through unique serial numbers.

An electoral bond is an instrument in the nature of a promissory note or bearer bond which can be purchased by any individual, company, firm or association of persons provided the person or body is a citizen of India or incorporated or established in India.

Electoral bonds were introduced through Finance Act 2017, which in turn amended three other statutes - the RBI Act, the Income Tax Act and the Representation of People Act - for enabling introduction of such bonds.

Various petitions had been filed before the top court challenging at least five amendments made to different statutes through Finance Act 2016 and 2017, on the ground that they have opened doors to unlimited, unchecked funding of political parties.

The petitions sought that the money bill route was adopted in order to bypass the Rajya Sabha, where the ruling BJP government does not have a majority.

The petitioners -- ADR and Common Cause and Jaya Thakur -- had moved the Supreme Court and challenged the electoral bonds scheme.

They claimed that the consequence of the amendments was that annual contribution reports of political parties to be furnished to the Election Commission of India (ECI) need not mention names and addresses of those persons/ individuals by contributing by way of electoral bonds, thereby killing transparency in political funding.

The Finance Act, 2017 introduced a system of electoral bonds to be issued by any scheduled bank for the purpose of electoral funding.