SC to hear SBI’s extension plea on electoral bonds today
Bench headed by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud will also hear a separate petition which has sought initiation of contempt action against the SBI
Mumbai: The Supreme Court will hear SBI's plea seeking an extension in the electoral bonds case on Monday, while the central bank faces allegations of contempt. The next hearing on the matter will take place on March 11.
A five-judge bench of the Supreme Court will be hearing a plea filed by the State Bank of India on Monday, seeking an extension till June 30 to fully disclose the details of the electoral bonds encashed by political parties till date. This comes shortly after the apex court decided to scrap the scheme, deeming it “unconstitutional”.
Apart from the plea seeking the extension of the deadline, the Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud will also hear a separate petition which has sought initiation of contempt action against the SBI in the same case. Talking to Bizz Buzz, Jagdeep Chhokar, founder member of Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR) and former dean at IIM-A says, “We hope that the apex court will start the required proceeding of contempt against SBI chairperson.” The Supreme Court delivered a landmark verdict on February 15, scrapping Centre's electoral bonds scheme which allowed anonymous funding for political parties, calling the policy “unconstitutional.”
The apex court bench also ordered the disclosure of all the donors by the Election Commission, as well as the amount donated and the recipients by March 15. Ordering closure of the scheme forthwith, the apex court had directed the SBI, the authorised financial institution under the scheme, to submit by March 6 the details of the electoral bonds purchased since April 12, 2019 till date to the Election Commission which was asked to publish the information on its official website by March 13.
However, the State Bank of India moved the Supreme Court on March 4, seeking an extension of the deadline till June 30 to disclose the electoral bonds data. The bank said that the procedure of retrieving and matching the information of “each silo” is a time-taking exercise.
After SBI filed its plea seeking an extension on the deadline, a separate plea was filed in the Supreme Court by NGOs Association for Democratic Reforms and Common Cause, seeking the initiation of contempt proceedings against the bank for allegedly disobeying the top court.
The plea application by ADR claimed that SBI's application seeking an extension of time has been deliberately filed at the last moment to ensure that details of donor and the amount of donations are not disclosed to the public before the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
The contempt plea said, “The petitioner herein is filing the instant petition seeking initiation of contempt proceedings against State Bank of India for wilfully and deliberately disobeying the order dated February 15 passed by this court… wherein this court directed SBI to submit details of contribution made to the political parties through electoral bonds to the Election Commission of India by March 6.”
