The Supreme Court on Friday strongly disapproved of State Bank of India (SBI)’s decision to not disclose the unique serial number linked to each electoral bond (EB) when supplying the Election Commission of India (ECI) with information about bond beneficiaries and donors for public release.

Under the 2018 EB scheme, which was quashed by the Supreme Court on February 15, each electoral bond is imprinted with a unique number that can assist in tracking the issuance and redemption of bonds, and in tracing the bond back to the purchaser. If this number is provided, it will be possible to match purchases with redemptions, establishing a one-to-one correspondence.

“We can take exception to what they have not disclosed. Our direction was clear… We directed disclosure of entire details. They have not disclosed the bond number. They have to disclose the number too,” said a Constitution bench, led by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud, seeking the bank’s reply on March 18.

At this point, solicitor general (SG) Tushar Mehta said that the court may seek a response from the bank on the issue. “They may have something to say on this,” Mehta submitted before the bench, also comprising justices Sanjiv Khanna, BR Gavai, JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra.

Responding, the court remarked: “If you see our judgment, it said ‘all details’ have to be furnished… really speaking, we can take exception.”

Appearing for some of the petitioners, senior counsel Kapil Sibal and advocate Prashant Bhushan contended that the bank was in breach of the judgment, which made it clear that all details available with SBI regarding the bonds purchased and redeemed since April 2019 must be supplied to the ECI. Bhushan added that SBI’s application for extension of time to share data with ECI had in fact recorded that they have the information on the alphanumeric serial numbers of EBs.

Mehta replied that since he is appearing for the Union government, and SBI is not a formal party before the court in the present proceedings, the bank should be put to notice before issuing any fresh order. Accepting his plea, the court issued notice to SBI and fixed the matter for hearing next on March 19.

ECI on Thursday evening published data of electoral bonds purchased and redeemed between April 12, 2019 and February 15, 2024.

In this period, 20,421 bonds worth ₹12,769.09 crore were redeemed by 23 political parties, with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leading the pack with a war chest of ₹6,061 crore (47.5% of total redeemed value), followed by the Trinamool Congress with ₹1,610 crore (12.6%) and Congress with ₹1,422 crore (11.1%).

The top three buyers include Tamil Nadu-based Future Gaming and Hotel Services PR ( ₹1,368 crore), Hyderabad-based Megha Engineering and Infrastructures Limited ( ₹966 crore) and Qwik Supply Chain Private Limited ( ₹410 crore).

However, it is not possible to directly correlate the donor and recipient of a particular bond without the corresponding serial numbers.

The court’s disdain came as it allowed a plea by ECI, seeking retrieval of the EB documents it had presented to the court in November last year. The poll body moved the court on Thursday — the same day it made public the data on EBs on its website. Claiming that it did not retain copies of the documents, ECI expressed its inability to comply with the court order on Monday that directed the poll body to “forthwith” publish the details of the information which was supplied to the court in November 2023.

Electoral bonds: Congress claims mismatch in entries of donor, recipient data

Allowing ECI’s request, the bench on Friday directed the court registrar to ensure the documents submitted by ECI are scanned and digitised by 5pm on Saturday. Subsequently, the original documents as well as a copy of the digitised data will be supplied to ECI’s counsel Amit Sharma for enabling the poll body to publish this date within two days.

On November 2, the five-judge bench directed ECI to provide it with comprehensive information on donations received by political parties through EBs till September 30, 2023. Subsequently, ECI submitted details in two tranches, containing 309 and 214 sealed envelopes respectively.

On Wednesday, the SBI chairman had filed his affidavit of compliance in the Supreme Court, informing it that the entire details of EBs purchased since April 1, 2019, have been submitted to ECI by the deadline set down by the court in its order on Monday.

The affidavit of SBI chairman Dinesh Kumar Khara stated that the documents furnished to ECI include two sets of information — one containing the names of political parties and the details regarding the bonds redeemed by them, while the other set contains the details of EB purchasers. These two sets of data were released by ECI on its website on Thursday evening.

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The SBI chairman’s affidavit added that 22,217 bonds were purchased between April 1, 2019, and February 15, 2024, and the total number of bonds redeemed during this period was 22,030. The 187 bonds not redeemed within the validity period of 15 days were transferred to the Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund in accordance with a 2018 gazette notification.

SBI earlier this month approached the Supreme Court with a plea for granting it time till June 30 to submit details of EBs purchased since April 12, 2019, arguing that “decoding” the data and matching donors to recipients would be a “complex process”.

But, on Monday, the bench rejected SBI’s plea, noting that the required information was “readily available” with the bank, and giving it time until the business hours of March 12 to do so.

The court, on February 15 struck down the Centre’s 2018 EB scheme of political funding, declaring it to be “unconstitutional” because it completely anonymised contributions made to political parties, and added that restricting black money or illegal election financing — some of the articulated objectives of the scheme — did not justify violating voters’ right to information in a disproportionate manner. It had ordered full disclosure of EBs purchased and those redeemed by political parties.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday termed the scrapped electoral bonds scheme “biggest extortion racket in the world.”

“The funds amassed through the scheme were used to split political parties and topple opposition governments,” he alleged at a press conference in Thane.

“There was no correlation between the electoral bonds and the contracts given by Congress or other opposition parties’ governments in states,” he added.

The Polit Bureau of the CPI(M) on Friday welcomed the Supreme Court’s order, claiming the move means there have been efforts to undermine the top court’s verdict.