Supreme Court gave notice to SBI! CJI asked- Why is there no bond number in the data given to the Election Commission?
A hearing was held in the Supreme Court on Friday (March 15, 2024) regarding the electoral bond case. During this time, the Election Commission said that it had given the information about donations received from political parties before the year 2019 to the Supreme Court in a sealed envelope. He did not keep a copy of it.
The Supreme Court said on this that it will be returned to the Election Commission. Before that, it will be scanned and the digital copy will be kept with the Supreme Court. Chief Justice DY Chandrachud raised questions on the fact that State Bank of India (SBI) did not mention the bond number in the data given to the Election Commission, despite its clear order.
SBI reprimanded
During the hearing, the Supreme Court strongly reprimanded State Bank of India (SBI) for not sharing complete data on electoral bonds. While canceling this scheme, the court had directed SBI to share all the details on donations made in the last 5 years. Apart from the rebuke, the Supreme Court issued a notice to SBI on the question of disclosing the specific numbers of the bonds and allowed it to return the electoral bond data stored with it to the Election Commission. The Supreme Court was hearing a petition by SBI not to share the unique alphanumeric code printed on every electoral bond. This unique number would have helped in matching donors with political parties.
Election Commission had given application
A special bench of 5 judges heard this case. Now the next hearing in this case will be on Monday (March 18). In fact, the Supreme Court had ordered the State Bank of India to provide information about all the people who bought electoral bonds to the Election Commission. Also, the Election Commission was ordered to upload all this information on its website. The Election Commission has filed an application regarding amendment in the order on its implementation, a hearing on the same was held today.
What does the Election Commission want?
In the application filed by the Election Commission in the Supreme Court, it has sought amendment in the order passed by the Supreme Court on March 11. In this, some clarification or amendment has been sought in the operative part of the order. However, its detailed information is not yet available.
These big companies took electoral bonds
If we look at the data released by the Election Commission, the companies that have purchased the maximum number of electoral bonds in the name of helping political parties include Grasim Industries, Megha Engineering, Piramal Enterprises, Torrent Power, Bharti Airtel, DLF Commercial Developers and Vedanta Limited. Names of companies like Apollo Tyres, Lakshmi Mittal, Edelweiss, PVR, Keventer, Sula Wine, Welspun, Sun Pharma are included.
