SBI deletes electoral bond details from its website; SC hears its extension plea

After the State Bank of India (SBI) made an appeal in Supreme Court for the extension of deadline to disclose the electoral bond details till June 30, it has now deleted documents related to electoral-bond from its website.

The court had directed the bank to submit the details by March 6 to the Election Commission which must include the date of encashment and the value of the bonds and be submitted to the poll panel.
SBI’s deadline extension plea is heard by the apex court on March 11 in front of a five—judge constitution bench headed by Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud.

On February 15, the Supreme Court in an unprecedented judgement, had annulled the electoral bonds scheme for political funding and directed India’s largest lender to divulge all the details. 

Reportedly, in total, including the latest tranche, Rs 16,518.11 crore electoral bonds have been sold by the bank. The electoral bonds scheme was launched by the Modi government, which allowed anonymous political funding of which SBI was the authorised financial institution.

Meanwhile, the deleted document titled “Operating guidelines for donors” was a gazette notification which was released on January 2, 2018. 

It listed basic information like who could purchase an electoral bond, electoral bonds were available in what denominations, what were the documents required to purchase electoral bonds, how to purchase (through NEFT, online transaction, etc.) and which are the SBI branches authorized for the purchase of the bonds, reported The Wire.

According to The Wire report, in the FAQs, SBI had provided basic information related to electoral bonds like KYC requirements and citizenship proof required for the purchase of bonds, etc. The deleted documents were shared by senior journalist Nitin Sethi on social media platform X (previously called Twitter) and another social media user @indian_nagrik.