SBI Electoral Bonds - Why is SBI Taking Four Months to Compile Data?
Electoral bond schemes: Is it necessary for SBI to take four months to compile data on electoral bonds? Some experts have speculated on why SBI may have requested an extension, and they have detailed the necessary data collection and compilation processes.
image for illustrative purpose
State Bank of India electoral bonds
State Bank of India (SBI), the only bank authorised to handle the bonds, applied for a deadline extension until 30 June, three weeks after the Supreme Court invalidated the PM Narendra Modi government's electoral bonds scheme and ordered the disclosure of donor and transaction details.
Activists, political observers, and opposition parties wasted no time in drawing attention to the SBI's stated timeline, which emphasises that the data will not be revealed until the general elections conclude, in light of the verdict's previously perceived setback for the government.
The Congress government questioned who was ‘pressurising the SBI’ to withhold data that can be revealed with just ‘one click’ until 30 June, while the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) is prepared to challenge the SBI's request for an extension in the electoral bonds case.
The Supreme Court mandated in its 15 February ruling that SBI must furnish the Election Commission with the specifics of the electoral bonds bought between 12 April 2019 and 15 February 2024 no later than 6 March. The court ordered the EC to make public by 13 March the information, which must contain the following: the date of purchase of each electoral bond, the name of the donor, the party to which the donor donated, and the denomination of the electoral bond purchased.
There were 22,217 electoral bonds issued to different parties between 12 April 2019 and 15 February 2024, according to the SBI's application, which was submitted to the Supreme Court on 4 March, two days before the deadline set by the court. The main SBI branch in Mumbai received the redeemed bonds from the authorised branches, so it has to decipher and compile 44,434 (22,217x2) data sets, according to the SBI.
Additionally, experts cast doubt on the SBI's assertions in the application regarding the need for additional time to verify two data sets.
In the words of Professor Jagdeep Chhokar, founder and trustee of ADR,
"Before the designated branch where the political party is redeeming the donation it received, it would actually verify with the donor's branch first. So, without verification from the donor's branch, it sounds strange that the branch of the political party would just credit that money in their account. It is strange that those two records have not already been tallied."
