Hearings on the Electoral Bond case have commenced in the Supreme Court. Presided over by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and a five-judge bench, the proceedings started upon an application by India's Election Commission. The application seeks the return of Electoral Bond documents previously submitted to the court in sealed boxes on two occasions.
The Election Commission stated that they require the sealed records since no copies were retained by them.
The court ordered the disclosure of the bond numbers, mandating the State Bank to provide a copy of the data. The Supreme Court instructed the Registrar to keep a scanned copy of the sealed data in the Supreme Court's records and to hand over the original data to the Election Commission by tomorrow evening at 5 PM.
'SBI did not fully comply with the order...'
The bench comprising Chief Justice DY Chandrachud along with Justices Sanjeev Khanna, BR Gavai, JB Pardiwala and Manoj Mishra stated that SBI has not fully complied with the court's March 11 order, which demanded full disclosure of all Electoral Bond information.
The bench clarified that all information linked to Electoral Bonds including the date of purchase, buyer's name and denomination will be provided. It should be noted that SBI has not disclosed the alphanumeric numbers of the Electoral Bonds. The court directed SBI to disclose all the information. The registry was instructed to issue a notice to SBI.
Following the court's firm stance, the Electoral Bond data was released
After firm instructions from the Supreme Court, the State Bank of India (SBI) has handed over the Electoral Bonds data to the Election Commission. The Commission has uploaded the information received from SBI on its website. This shared data includes transactions of Electoral Bonds from April 12, 2019, with values ranging from 1,000 to 1 crore rupees (these bonds are now discontinued). It details the companies and individuals who purchased these bonds and describes the political parties that received these contributions.
