Earlier today (March 18), the State Bank of India made a profound disclosure during the Supreme Court’s hearing over the electoral bonds. Senior advocate Harish Salve, representing SBI, revealed that the bond numbers issued by the banks are only available on the bond and not anywhere else.
When probed if the purpose of the bond number is for security or an audit trail, the bank responded by saying it is only for the security feature and the audit trail is different.
Salve : In two files. The bond number is only on the bond. It is visible only under UV light.
— Live Law (@LiveLawIndia) March 18, 2024
CJI : Is it only a security feature or for audit trail?
Salve : Security feature. Audit trail is seperate.#SupremeCourt #ElectoralBonds #SBI
Nevertheless, the Supreme Court on Monday ordered the SBI to submit all “conceivable” details available with it regarding electoral bonds, including the alphanumeric number corresponding to each bond.
The court also asked the SBI, in the interest of avoiding controversy in the future, to file an affidavit by 5 PM on Thursday that it has disclosed all details in its custody and that no details have been withheld.
Electoral bonds are money instruments that act as promissory notes or bearer bonds that can be purchased by individuals or companies in India. They are issued specifically for the contribution of funds to the political parties.
The development came weeks after the Supreme Court deemed the electoral bonds scheme invalid, labelling it ‘unconstitutional’. Additionally, it ruled that anonymous poll bonds infringe upon the Right to Information as outlined in Article 19(1)(a). Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud expressed that poll bonds violate fundamental rights and raised concerns about them leading to quid pro quo.
However, the submissions made by senior advocate Harish Salve on Monday (March 18) for the SBI poked holes in the conspiracy theories widely popular among the leftist circles relating to electoral bonds, especially after the report published by The Quint ‘journalist’ Poonam Agarwal.
The matter pertains to a unique secret code printed on each electoral bond that is not visible to the naked eye but can be seen under UV light. The hidden alphanumeric code, the bank said was a security feature and not for auditing purposes.
In essence, the SBI conveyed that just because the bond contains hidden numbers, it doesn’t mean they can be used to link donors with political parties, shattering the web of insinuations that The Quint ‘journalist’ Poonam Agarwal had weaved in her report that was widely hailed in the leftist circles as “pathbreaking journalism”. Several far-left propaganda portals such as The Wire, Scroll, and others had sung paeans to Agarwal over her “investigation” into electoral bonds.
Earlier this week, several left-leaning ideologues extolled The Quint journalist Poonam Agarwal, who was booked for abetment of suicide in the Army Jawan’s suicide case in 2017, for her report on electoral bonds, where she alleged that the electoral bonds were not completely anonymous as claimed by the late BJP leader Arun Jaitley and that the secret codes on them could be used by the Centre to link donors with political parties.
Describing it as ‘apparent outmanoeuvring by the Centre’, the report insinuated that the government was undertaking “unprecedented secret surveillance” with the help of hidden alphanumeric codes in the name of transparency through electoral bonds. This, in layman’s language, meant that the Centre was keeping a tab on who bought electoral bonds for which political parties.
The author also tried to imply a breach of trust on the part of the government after senior leader Arun Jaitley had promised complete anonymity on political donations via electoral bonds.
“The Quint’s investigation reveals that while the public will remain clueless about who has donated to which party, the government has access to those details, collated through alphanumeric numbers on the electoral bonds, which are invisible to the naked eye,” the Quint report authored by Poonam Agarwal read.
Those are two incredible leaps of faith by The Quint journalist who tried projecting her assumptions as facts by claiming that the secret codes on the electoral bonds could be used to draw a link between donors and the political parties, thereby compromising the promised anonymity to the donors, while also being a tool of surveillance for the Centre to know who was donating to which political party.
Another ridiculous argument that Agarwal furthers is that the watermark is enough and the alpha-numeric hidden code was not needed for security purposes. This doesn’t hold water because that would mean even currency notes don’t need serial numbers printed on them for security as they, too, have watermarks.
Those assumptions were laid to ruin by the SBI earlier today when it submitted in the top court that the hidden secret codes on the bonds are meant for security purposes and not recorded by the bank, much like the serial number on the currency notes, which banks don’t record during deposit and withdrawal, making it impossible for them to tell who was issued with currency number note and who deposited which note.
In a video explaining her stance on electoral bonds, Poonam categorically says that the bank would record the alpha-numeric code at the time of purchase of bonds, which would later be used to link donors to political parties. This has now been proven false, with the SBI submitting to the Supreme Court that the bond numbers are on the bonds only, nowhere else.
Since SBI has confirmed it hasn’t documented the figures, if the Supreme Court presses, SBI might scan the bonds and release the numbers, potentially connecting them to the recipient political parties. However, linking them to the donors seems a remote possibility.
Some political parties like the DMK and AIDMK were able to publish the donor names presumably because the companies may have given them the bonds directly. But for others, like the TMC and JDU, which said many donated them anonymously with some bonds being dropped in drop boxes, it is impossible to furnish the data if the parties didn’t keep the record.
Poonam Agarwal charged in 2017 army jawan suicide case
It is noteworthy to mention that Poonam Agarwal was booked for abetment of suicide in the Army jawan’s death case after carrying out a “sting operation” for the website The Quint at Deolali cantonment in Nashik, Maharashtra.
Poonam had entered the cantonment with hidden cameras concealing her identity as a journalist and recorded videos that showed army jawans employed as sahayaks (helpers) indulged in doing menial jobs that they should not be doing.
She talked to a jawan Lance Naik Roy Mathew in particular, who allegedly had no idea that he was talking to a journalist, and the conversation was used to prove that jawans were not happy with the sahayak system and that they were being exploited.
A few days later, Roy Mathew was found dead in an abandoned barrack in the cantonment. A diary was recovered from the barrack, which suggested that the jawan was under pressure and it was a case of suicide. Roy Mathew’s family members also confirmed that he was scared and under pressure as his identity was reported to have been revealed due to the “sting operation” and subsequent media coverage.
