NEW DELHI: The State Bank of India (SBI.NS), a government-run institution, requested extra time from the Supreme Court of India on Monday in order to release the identities of people and businesses that gave billions of rupees to political parties via a murky funding mechanism.
On February 15, the court declared the seven-year-old election funding scheme “unconstitutional” and abolished it, permitting political parties to receive limitless, anonymous payments.
The ruling comes ahead of the anticipated April or May national election and was a blow to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, which has benefited most from the 2017 system.
The names, beneficiaries, and sums of the donations were to be shared by SBI with the independent Election Commission of India (ECI) by March 6; the poll panel was to make the information public by March 13.
However, SBI filed a plea on March 4 asking for an extension until June 30, the day the elections would be finished. The motion stated that the information the court was requesting was divided into several categories and that it would take time to combine and match the 22,217 donation-related data.
In response to the request on Monday, the court stated that SBI should provide the information with the ECI “by close of business” on Tuesday because it is easily accessible with the bank.
Days before it is anticipated that general elections would be called, the five-judge court ordered that the ECI gather the data and publish the specifics by 5 p.m. on March 15.
Leading the bench was Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud. “We place SBI on notice that we might be inclined to proceed on wilful disobedience of court order if it does not comply with the timeline given today,” the bench stated.
“Our directions require SBI to disclose information which is already available,” Chandrachud stated. “Just follow the ruling; we haven’t ordered you to complete the corresponding task. The specifics are in your possession.”
Opposition politicians and a civil society organisation contested the election funding scheme known as Electoral Bonds, arguing that it impeded the public’s right to know who was funding political parties.
A person or business could purchase bonds from SBI under the current arrangement and give them to a political party.
Up to November 2023, people and businesses purchased 165.18 billion rupees ($2 billion) worth of these bonds, according to the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), a non-governmental civil society organisation that works on financing elections in India. The group was a system-challenging petitioner.
The court judgement on Monday elicited no instant response from the administration or the BJP. On February 15, the BJP declared that it will follow the court’s decision to eliminate the bonds and that it was dedicated to changing election financing.
Mallikarjun Kharge, the leader of the main opposition Congress party, wrote on X that “the Supreme Court’s decision is a victory for transparency, accountability, and level playing fields in democracy.”
