SBI 'duty bound' to disclose eBond numbers: SC

New Delhi: Admonishing the State Bank of India for furnishing incomplete information, the Supreme Court said on Friday the bank was required to provide the number unique to each electoral bond that would disclose the link between the buyer and the recipient political party. It issued a notice to the country's largest bank to explain the reasons for non-disclosure of unique alpha numeric numbers in compliance of its directions, saying the SBI was "duty bound" to reveal them.

A five-judge bench headed by Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud said the apex court had, in its verdict in the electoral bonds case, directed the disclosure of all the details of the bonds, including the purchaser, amount and date of purchase. All details have to be furnished by the SBI, the CJI observed, a day after the Election Commission put out the entire list of entities that purchased electoral bonds for making political donations. The bench, also comprising Justices Sanjiv Khanna, B R Gavai, J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, issued notice to the SBI and posted the matter for resumed hearing on March 18.

“Who is appearing for the SBI? Because, in our judgement, we had directed disclosure specifically of all details of the bonds including the purchaser, the amount and the date of purchase. They have not disclosed the bond numbers. That has to be disclosed by the SBI,” the CJI said. “But, really speaking, we can take exception to what they have disclosed because they were duty bound,” he added.

The apex court was hearing an application filed by the Election Commission seeking a modification of the operative portion of its March 11 order in the electoral bonds case. It directed the registrar (judicial) to ensure that the data filed earlier by the poll panel before it in a sealed cover be scanned and digitised.

The EC’s counsel said they have filed an application for a minor modification of the March 11 order, which also directed that the poll panel shall upload on its website the data furnished to the court. He said the EC had not retained any copy of the data which was earlier filed in the court for the sake of confidentiality.

“While issuing this direction, the court had presumed that a copy of the data which was lodged before the registry of this court would be available with the EC,” the bench said.