 "Election Commission, ECI")
Supreme Court had given the Election Commission of India time until March 15 to add the electoral bond particulars on its web site. (Photo: Shutterstock)
The Election Commission of India (ECI) revealed the electoral bond particulars supplied by the State Bank of India (SBI) on its official web site on Thursday, a day previous to the deadline set by the Supreme Court (SC).
In compliance with SC’s directive, SBI shared the knowledge with the ECI on March 12 and introduced the affidavit about the identical with the apex court docket on March 13. Additionally, the highest court docket had given the ECI time until March 15 to add the info on its web site.
The electoral physique has uploaded the ‘Disclosure of Electoral Bonds’ submitted by SBI into two sections on “as is where is basis”.
Earlier, the apex court docket had set a deadline of March 6 for SBI to submit the info, and ECI was requested to make it public by March 13. However, the financial institution requested the court docket for an extension until June 30. This was challenged by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), a New Delhi primarily based nonprofit organisation in India, engaged on electoral and political reforms since 1999. Notably, ADR was among the many petitioners who had opposed the electoral bonds scheme.
What are electoral bonds?
Electoral bonds have been launched within the nation on January 28, 2017 by then Union Minister for Finance and Corporate Affairs, Arun Jaitley. The goal was to facilitate clear political funding. These bonds, issued solely by SBI, served as a delegated monetary instrument that provided people and company entities the chance to contribute funds to political events discreetly, as these bonds had no identification of the donor and the political celebration to which it was issued.
Electoral bonds have been out there in denominations of Rs 1,000 and might be acquired from SBI branches throughout particular intervals stipulated by the federal government. Political events may then redeem these bonds via their designated accounts inside a prescribed timeframe.
The nameless political funding by way of electoral bonds was made unconstitutional by the SC, in its landmark judgement on 15 February 2024 and the five-judge Constitution bench mandated the ECI to reveal donors, the quantities donated by them, and the recipients.
According to the affidavit submitted by SBI with on March 13, between April 2019 and February 15, 2024, a complete of twenty-two,217 electoral bonds have been issued. Of these bonds, 22,030 have been redeemed by political events, whereas the remaining 187 have been redeemed, with the funds deposited into the Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund. According to information introduced in Lok Sabha through the Budget session, Minister of State within the Finance Ministry Pankaj Chaudhry mentioned {that a} complete of Rs 16,500 crore have been collected from 30 tranches of electoral bonds issued between March 2018 to January 2024. He added, “The commission paid to the State Bank of India by the Government of India for the issuance and redemption of Electoral Bonds from Phase I to Phase XXV is about Rs 8.57 crore. Also, the amount paid by the Government of India to Security Printing & Minting Corporation of India Ltd (SPMCIL) to date is about Rs 1.90 crore.”
First Published: Mar 14 2024 | 10:00 PM IST
