22,217 electoral bonds purchased, 22,030 redeemed

New Delhi: The State Bank of India (SBI) on Wednesday told the Supreme Court that a total of 22,217 electoral bonds were purchased by donors between April 1, 2019 and February 15 this year, out of which 22,030 were redeemed by political parties.

In a compliance affidavit filed in the apex court, the SBI said as per the court's direction, it has made available the details of electoral bonds to the Election Commission of India before the close of business hours on March 12. It said details, including date of purchase of each electoral bonds, names of the purchaser and the denomination of the bonds purchased have been furnished.

The affidavit, filed by SBI's chairman Dinesh Kumar Khara, said the bank has also furnished to the EC details like date of encashment of the electoral bonds, the names of political parties which received the contributions and the denominations of the bonds. "A total number of 22,217 bonds were purchased during the period April 1, 2019 till February 15, 2024. At the time of collating the information for the ECI, the details were segregated as below…," it said. The affidavit said between April 1, 2019 to April 11, 2019, a total of 3,346 electoral bonds were purchased and 1,609 redeemed. It further said from April 12, 2019 to February 15 this year, a total of 18,871 electoral bonds were purchased and 20,421 were redeemed.

"The State Bank of India has ready records in which the date of purchase, denomination and name of buyer were recorded, and (in relation to the political parties) the date of encashment and the denominations of the bonds encashed were recorded," the affidavit said. It said in compliance with the apex court's directions, a record of this information was made available to the EC by hand delivering in digital form (password protected) before the close of business hours on March 12. "The electoral bonds were sold and redeemed in phases during this period and phase IX started from April 1, 2019. The number of bonds set out in the application included (by oversight) the bonds that were purchased during the period commencing April 1, 2019 and not from April 12, 2019," it said.

The affidavit also contains as annexure a copy of letter as proof of service of data sent by the SBI to EC. “The amount of the electoral bonds which were not encashed by the political party within the validity period of 15 days during this period have been transferred to Prime Minister's National Relief Fund, as per the Gazette notification no.20 dated January 2, 2018,” reads the letter sent by the SBI to the poll panel.