New Delhi: A plea has been filed in the Supreme Court asking that the State Bank of India and Election Commission of India be told to release details of the electoral bonds bought between March 1, 2018 and April 11, 2019. The previous court order, which deemed electoral bonds to be unconstitutional, had only ordered the release of details from April 12, 2019 onwards.
The petitioner, Citizens for Rights Trust, has said that 9,159 bonds worth Rs 4,002 crore had been sold in this period and people deserved to know who had bought them, LiveLaw reported. On Sunday (March 17), the Election Commission of India released data on which parties redeemed bonds in this time. However, data on the purchasers of these bonds is still missing from the public domain.
The applicant sought a direction to the State Bank of India to share the details of bonds sold and redeemed from March 1, 2018, to April 11, 2019, including the alphanumeric number, date of purchase, denomination, names of donors and parties to the ECI.
At least two parties – the DMK and AIADMK – have disclosed the donors’ names in their submissions to the Election Commission which subsequently went to the Supreme Court. The Bharatiya Janata Party, in its submission, has said that the party “has not maintained particulars” of who donated electoral bonds to it, since it was not required by the scheme to keep these records.
As transparency rights activists Anjali Bhardwaj and Amrita Johri wrote in The Wire:
“Ever since the data has been published, there has been intense public engagement with the names of purchasers of bonds, the value of bonds bought by them and the dates on which the bonds were purchased. The information, as expected, has brought to light potential quid pro quo arrangements. Yet, voters remain in the dark about the identity of purchasers of electoral bonds worth more than Rs 4,000 crore sold before April 12, 2019. Unfortunately, the situation is unlikely to be remedied despite the additional disclosures that the court has directed the Election Commission of India (ECI) to make.
Prior to the 2019 general elections, while hearing the challenge to the electoral bonds, a bench led by the then Chief Justice of India, Justice Ranjan Gogoi, observed that the contentions made, “give rise to weighty issues which have a tremendous bearing on the sanctity of the electoral process in the country. Such weighty issues would require an in-depth hearing.” In its interim order dated April 12, 2019, although the Supreme Court refused to stay the electoral bond scheme, the court directed political parties to submit information about electoral bonds received by them to the ECI, including: the details of donors of each bond; the amount and date of each bond; and details of the bank in which the bonds were credited. All of this was required to be submitted in a sealed cover by political parties to the ECI.
…Once the 629 sealed envelopes are opened and their contents disclosed, we will get access to information submitted by political parties for all bonds redeemed by them, including those redeemed before April 12, 2019. While this data is significant, it is unlikely to contain the names of purchasers – the holy grail of disclosures, which enable public scrutiny and tracking of quid pro quo.”
