Electoral Bonds Case: SBI Demands Extension From Supreme Court

Written by:

Adv Tanvi Malik

Updated: 06-03-2024

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The electoral bond scheme within India's electoral financing scenery has been a reason for disagreement as well as interest. Electoral bonds have been developed for political funding transparency; however, they have brought up significant concerns about possible misuse and opacity.

The Supreme Court's upcoming hearing as per the SBI in electoral Bond case today on the State Bank of India's (SBI) demand for an extension to disclose information regarding electoral bond transactions is the most recent turning point in this ongoing saga. This hearing, which has been scheduled for March 11, will have an important effect on how forthright election funding in the whole country is shaped going ahead.

Electoral Bonds Benefits

The Election Commission of India has disclosed a bank account that must be used to redeem all electoral bonds that have been issued, which strengthens the malfeasance.
According to electoral bonds benefits, the extensive usage of electoral bonds can aid in containing political parties that function primarily as means of raising money from the general population. The reason for this is because electoral funding is only available to registered parties which receive at least 1% of the total votes in the general election.
Electoral bonds support the government's objective of fully digitizing and safeguarding election funds. As a result, it is not legally necessary for donations exceeding RS 2000 to take the form of electoral bonds and cheques.
As per the electoral bonds benefits, the electoral bond transactions are done online or with cheques.

Why in the News?

The State Bank of India filed a plea on March 11, asking for an extension until June 30 to disclose all of the details of the electoral bond scheme that political parties have so far cashed. A five-judge bench of the Supreme Court will hear the case. This occurred soon after the Supreme Court ruled that the program was "unconstitutional" and decided to abandon it.

As per the SBI in electoral Bond case, in addition to the request for a deadline extension, the Chief Justice of India, DY Chandrachud, and the Supreme Court bench will consider a different petition that calls for the SBI to be held in contempt of court in relation to the same case.

Plea by the SBI in Supreme Court

The Election Commission was instructed to post the details of the electoral bond scheme that has been purchased since April 12, 2019, on its official website by March 13. The SBI in Supreme Courtwas instructed to provide the Election Commission with this information by March 6.
The directive to the SBI in electoral Bond case came after the Center's anonymous political funding program, known as electoral bonds, was abandoned by a five-judge constitutional bench on February 15, citing it as "unconstitutional".
Under the electoral bond scheme, the SBI in Supreme Court was the financial entity that was authorized. The deadline of March 6th was missed.
The SBI had petitioned the Supreme Court on March 4 to extend until June 30 the deadline for disclosing the specifics of election bonds that political parties had cashed.
The SBI has argued in its appeal that it would take a lot of time to retrieve information from "each silo" and match the information from one silo to the other.
A document with basic information about buying electoral bonds was removed by the SBI recently.

Petition for Contempt Against SBI

The Supreme Court received a contempt suit from the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) accusing the State Bank of India (SBI) of failing to provide the Election Commission with information regarding electoral bonds.
Advocate Prashant Bhushan informed the court that the State Bank of India had submitted an application for an extension, which is anticipated to be listed on March 11, while bringing up the case before a bench presided over by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud on Thursday.

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