Election Commission moves SC seeking return of electoral bonds data submitted in sealed cover

The Election Commission on Thursday moved the Supreme Court seeking the return of the data on electoral bonds that was presented to the court in a sealed cover in November, Live Law reported.

A Constitution bench of the top court will hear the matter on Friday.

On November 2, the Supreme Court directed the Election Commission to get the details of the funds received by all the political parties through electoral bonds till September 30 and submit the data to the court in a sealed cover. However, the poll panel’s counsel told the court they had data only till 2019.

Referring to an interim order of April 12, 2019, a bench led by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud said that the Election Commission was obliged to maintain the data of electoral bond funding to date.

Subsequently, the poll panel agreed to collate the data till September and handed over to the court a sealed cover containing the data about the electoral bonds sold and encashed before April 12, 2019.

In its application on Thursday, the Election Commission told the Supreme Court that it had not kept any copies of the data with itself to maintain confidentiality.

It sought the return of the data from the court so that it could be uploaded on its website in compliance with the court’s March 11 direction.

On March 11, while rejecting the State Bank of India’s plea seeking more time to furnish the data on electoral bonds, the Supreme Court asked the Election Commission to also publish the data of bonds sold and encashed prior to April 12, 2019.

“Copies of the statements which were filed by the ECI before this Court would be maintained in the Office of the ECI,” the court said.

Electoral bonds were monetary instruments that citizens or corporate groups could buy from the State Bank of India and give to a political party, which could then redeem them.

The entire process was anonymous since buyers were not required to declare their purchase of these interest-free bonds and political parties did not need to show the source of the money. However, the Centre could access information about these donors as it controls the State Bank of India.

The electoral bonds scheme was introduced by the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Union government in 2018.

Supreme Court judgement

The Supreme Court had on February 15 said that the electoral bonds could lead to quid pro quo arrangements between donors and political parties when it struck down the scheme as unconstitutional. The court directed the State Bank of India to issue details of the political parties that received electoral bonds from April 12, 2019, and submit them to the Election Commission by March 6.

On March 4, the government-owned bank sought an extension till June 30 from the court to provide the information to the Election Commission.

The top court on Monday dismissed the bank’s plea and directed it to disclose the details of the electoral bonds to the Election Commission by March 12.

Also read: ‘SBI is lying’: Why banking experts dispute its claims on electoral bonds data

Election Commission uploads data

The poll panel on Thursday made the data on electoral bonds public. This came a day after the State Bank of India informed the Supreme Court that it had furnished details of anonymously purchased electoral bonds by contributors and encashed by political parties between April 2019 and February 15, 2024, to the Election Commission.

An initial analysis of the data showed that lottery giant Future Gaming and Hotel Services was the top purchaser of electoral bonds, as it had bought bonds worth Rs 1,368 crore.

The second-largest buyer is the Megha group of companies, which bought bonds worth Rs 1,186 crore. This includes Megha Engineering and Infrastructures Limited, which bought 966 bonds worth Rs 1 crore each, and Western UP Power Transmission Company Ltd, which bought bonds worth Rs 220 crore.

Also read: Top buyers of electoral bonds include lottery king, infrastructure giant, mining group Vedanta