| India.com
On March 18, the Supreme Court had directed the SBI to stop being ‘selective’ and make ‘full disclosure’ of all details related to the electoral bond scheme by March 21.
New Delhi: The State Bank of India told the Supreme Court on Thursday that it has provided all details of the election bonds in its possession to the Election Commission. The SBI chairman said in a statement that the complete bank account numbers and KYC details of the political parties have not been made public “as it may compromise the security of the account (cyber security)”.
“Similarly, KYC details of buyers are also not made public for security reasons, apart from the fact that such information is not entered/collected in the system. However, they are not necessary for identifying the political parties,” said the affidavit of bank chairman Dinesh Kumar Khara.
The affidavit states that the SBI has disclosed information showing the name of the buyer of the bond, its value and specific number, the name of the party who redeemed the bond, the last four digits of the bank account number of the political parties that have redeemed the bond. bond and the denomination and unique number of the deposited bond.
“On March 21, 2024, the State Bank of India furnished/disclosed to the Election Commission of India all details of the electoral bonds in its possession and custody,” the report said.
“It is respectfully submitted that SBI has now disclosed all the details and no details (except complete account numbers and KYC details) have been withheld from disclosure in terms of the directions contained in the judgment dated February 15, 2024 read with March order. 18, 2024 passed by this court,” the affidavit said.
On March 18, the Supreme Court had directed the SBI to stop being “selective” and make “full disclosure” of all details related to the electoral bond scheme by March 21.
The top court had said the details to be made public should include the unique bond numbers that would match the buyers with the recipient political parties.
In a landmark judgment on February 15, a five-judge Constitution bench had struck down the Centre’s controversial electoral bond scheme, which allowed anonymous political financing, terming it “unconstitutional” and ordered disclosure by the EC of the donors, the amounts donated by them and the recipients before March 13.
Ordering the closure of the scheme, the top court directed the SBI, the authorized financial institution under the scheme, to submit to the Election Commission by March 6 the details of the electoral bonds purchased since April 12, 2019 till date serve.
(With PTI inputs)