The State Bank of India on Thursday, 21 March, filed an affidavit with the Supreme Court informing that it has submitted all details related to Electoral Bonds, including the bond numbers to the Election Commission of India. The apex court on 18th March had ordered the SBI to disclose all data it has related to the bonds, after the data bank provided by the bank was deemed incomplete as it didn’t include the bond numbers, and the donors could not be linked to the political parties.
The SC had ordered the SBI to submit all details related to Electoral Bonds in its possession to the Election Commission, and the ECI is to publish the data on its website. The court had also ordered SBI chairman Dinesh Kumar Khara to file an affidavit by 5 PM on Thursday stating that all details in its custody have been disclosed and that no information has been suppressed.
Accordingly, the SBI MD filed the affidavit today, which states that the bank has provided /disclosed all details of the electoral bonds which are in its possession and custody to the Election Commission of India. The bank also attached a copy of proof of service along with the affidavit.
Electoral Bonds: State Bank of India (SBI) Chairman files compliance affidavit in Supreme Court saying that all details of Electoral Bonds, including the alphanumeric numbers, have been disclosed to the Election Commission.
— ANI (@ANI) March 21, 2024
On March 21, 2024, the SBI provided /disclosed all… pic.twitter.com/6D2UC0QjDH
The affidavit states that it has provided two sets of data related to electoral, one for purchasers of bonds and the other for political parties that received the bonds. The details were submitted to the ECI on 20 March in two sealed envelopes. One envelope contained a pen drive with two PDF files, one containing all details of the purchase of electoral bonds, and the other with the details of political parties that received the bonds. The PDF files are password protected, and the passwords were provided separately in the second envelope. SBI said that it will provide the hard of the details later, if and when required.
The details of the purchaser include Sr. No., URN No., Journal Date, Date of Purchase, Date of Expiry, Name of the purchaser, Prefix, Bond Number, Denomination, Issue Branch Code, Issue Teller, and Status.
The details of the redemption by Political Parties have the Sr. No., Date of Encashment, Name of the Political Party, Last four digit of account number, Prefix, Bond Number, Denomination, Pay Branch Code, and Pay Teller.
The bank states that the prefix and the bond number is in fact the alphanumeric number. This alphanumeric number is printed on the electoral bonds with invisible ink. Which means, they are not visible to naked eye, but can be seen under ultraviolet. The bank during the last hearing had said that it is a security feature.
After the ECI publishes the data submitted by the State Bank of India, it will be possible to find which donor donated to which political party using the electoral bonds. While some parties like DMK and AIDMK have published the names of donors of electoral bonds, most parties have not. Some parties have cited the law enabling to withheld the information, while others like TMC and JDU said bonds were donated to them anonymously and some bonds were dropped in drop boxes, therefore they can’t identify the donors.
