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ia 5760. it is submitted that donor detail...

i wanted to just, my lord, make a respectful suggestion.

yes? if your lordships see para 221...

yes? my lord, if (b) and (c) are not to be matched, then, my lord, we can give the information in three weeks.

let me explain how. if we, on one hand, is 'the person who purchased the electoral bond and the number of bonds he purchased' - that, my lord, in two three weeks, we can get all the figures.

in the second, 'the bonds encashed by the political parties, which includes the date of encashment and denomination' - that details we have, my lord.

that also we can give in three weeks, we'll put it all together.

three weeks for what mr. salve? my lord, these are all in the ...

because the accounts are separate, the payment has come separately and the name was kept separately, we will marry the two and give it.

the political parties have already given the details of the encashments made by them.

correct my lord. so that in any case is there.

if your lordships is pleased to turn to page 76 of my application.

yes, my lord. it is submitted that details were kept in a sealed cover at the designated branch and all such sealed covers were deposited in the main branch of the applicant bank, which is located in mumbai.

as far as b is concerned, we can give it.

details also are already available with you.

i'm sorry, my lords? with regard to the purchasers, the donors and the details of amount they have purchased, these details are already available.

yes. so that we can give, we'll just put that figures together and.

the trouble is my lord, we understood, b and c meant that we had to give a complete correlation of who bought how much, how much was received, how much was given to whom and which bank, rather which party encashed it from which bank.

that bridge was creating that difficulty. if we don't have to give that matching.

what we'll do is we'll dictate a short, we'll dictate an order.

before your lordship dictates.... after we dictate it, if there's something which remains, you can tell us.

by a judgment dated 15th february 2024, this court declared the electoral bond scheme and the provisions of the finance act-2017, which amended the provisions of the representation of the people act 1951 and the income tax act 1961 un-constitutional, on the ground that the non-disclosure of information regarding the funding of political parties is violative of the right to information of citizens under article 19(1)(a) of the constitution.

the amendments which were introduced by the finance act 2017, to the provisions of the companies act 2013, permitting unlimited funding of political parties by corporate entities, were held to be arbitrary and violative of article 14 of the constitution.

yes, my lord. on the other end, each political party was required to maintain a designated account in any of the 29 authorized branches.

in order to give full effect to the judgment which was rendered by the constitution bench, this court directed the state bank of india, (sbi), which was the authorized bank to deal with electoral bonds under the electoral bond scheme to submit details of the electoral bonds purchased by the contributors and redeemed by political parties between 12th april, 2019 (the date on which an interim order was asked by this court directing the election commission of india, (eci) to collect details of the contributions (till 15th february 2024) the date of the judgment.

this court directed sbi to submit the following details by 6th march 2024 to the eci.

a) details of each electoral bond purchased including the date of purchase, the name of the purchaser and the denomination of the electoral bond; and b) details of each electoral bond redeemed by political parties, including the date of encashment and the denomination of the electoral bond.

the eci was directed to collate the information, which is to be submitted by the sbi, and publish it on its website by 13 march 2024.

the directions of this court are extracted below: para 219 at page 76.

my lords, it is 221 with page 76 of the application.

[may be scc online, it is 221. the paragraph begins with the words "in view of our discussion above, following direction that are issued" and the last word, which you will copy down is "the purchaser's account."] sbi filed a miscellaneous application before this court two days before the expiry of the deadline, seeking an extension of time until 30 june, 2024 for complying with the directions.

the petitioners before this court - association for democratic reforms and the communist party of india (marxist) - instituted a petition invoking the contempt jurisdiction of this court against sbi for an alleged wilful disobedience of the order of this court.

in support of the application by sbi, we have heard mr. harish n salve, learned senior counsel.

mr. salve submitted that the information which was received by the sbi was maintained in two separate silos, and was maintained with utmost secrecy so as to fulfil the core purpose of the electoral bond scheme.

it was only in this account that electoral bonds received by that party could be deposited and redeemed.

learned counsel submitted that, if the disclosure is to be made of the information required to be submitted by sbi to eci in the separate silos which are referred to in b) and c) of the operative directions, there would be no difficulty in sbi doing so, which it has been indicated, would be completed within three weeks.

however, it has been submitted that the difficulty of sbi arose since it construed the directions of this court in requiring it to carry out a matching exercise to match the donor and bond details with the corresponding details pertaining to encashment by political parties.

while evaluating the submissions which have been made on behalf of sbi, a reference to some of the key aspects of the scheme would be in order at this stage.

clause 7(4) of the electoral bond scheme stipulates that the information furnished by the buyer of an electoral bond shall be treated as confidential by the authorized banks and shall be disclosed only when called upon to do so, by a competent court or upon the registration of an offense by a law enforcement agency.

thus, in terms of the provisions of the electoral bond scheme itself, sbi is mandated to disclose information when demanded by the court.

however, what has to be analysed, is whether sbi is justified in seeking an extension of time.

sbi seeks an extension of time on the ground that the process of "decoding the electoral bonds and matching the donor to the donations" is a complex and time-consuming exercise.

to substantiate this argument, sbi has averred that: a) information is not available in a digital format: clause 7.1.2 of the standard operating procedure regarding the sale and redemption of electoral bonds stipulates that "no details of bond purchaser, including kyc and other details, will be entered in the core banking system." thus, the details of the purchases of bond or bonds are not available centrally; b) the donor details and recipient details, are available in two separate silos: the details of the purchasers of the electoral bonds were kept in a sealed cover at the designated branch.

these sealed covers were deposited in the main branch of sbi in mumbai at the end of each phase of the issuance of the electoral bonds.

the information on the redemption of electoral bonds (that is, the original bond and the pay-in slip) were stored in a sealed cover and sent to the sbi, mumbai branch; c) matching of information in the two silos is a time-consuming process: the matching of the information on the purchase and redemption of electoral bonds would be time consuming since the donor information and redemption information is maintained in two distinct silos independent of each other; d) there is a large number of data sets to decipher: a total of 22,217 bonds were purchased between 12th april, 2019 and 15th february, 2024.

at the time of redemption the original bond, the pay-in slip would be stored in a sealed cover and sent to the sbi mumbai main branch.

this would cumulatively add up to 44,434 data sets since there are two silos of information.

in other words, the compilation of this information would be a time-consuming process.

the crux of the submission of the sbi is that the matching of information to ascertain who contributed to which political party is a time-consuming process since the information is maintained in two separate silos.

now the operative directions which have been issued by this court as reproduced earlier, the operative directions of this court directed the sbi to disclose the transactions as set out in direction (b) and direction (c) extracted above.

sbi submits in its application itself that the donor details and redemption details are available, albeit in separate silos.

in other words, the directions which have been issued by this court require sbi to disclose information which is already available to it.

at this stage, it would be material to refer to the faqs on electoral bonds published by the sbi which states that the know your customer documents must be submitted by the purchaser each time by the bond is purchased irrespective of whether the purchaser has a kyc verified sbi account.

that is one set of documents (the electoral bond application form, kyc documents and pay-in slip) can only be used to purchase one electoral bond.

contributors who have an sbi account as well as, those who do not, have to submit the electoral bond application, know your customer documentation and proof of payment through neft, cheque or demand draft.

thus, the details of the electoral bond which have been purchased, and which have been directed to be disclosed by this court are readily available.

so, what you are saying is that donor details were all sent to the sbi main branch, redemption details were all sent to the mumbai - the same branch, the sbi central main branch in mumbai.

similarly, the faqs on electoral bonds published by the sbi with respect to the redemption of bonds states, that each political party can only open one current account for electoral bond redemption.

the current account could be opened by the political party only in four authorized branches in chennai, kolkata, mumbai and new delhi.

there are 29, factually, nothing turns on that.

29 designated branches. 29 designated branches. they are in the four cities or other places also?

no. all over the country. all over the country.

not in these four places only. thus, information about a political party's encashment of electoral bonds would be stored only in these branches which would be clearly accessible.

payment slips and other details would have to be, would have to be submitted to the main branch.

there is no dispute about the fact, as they cannot be, that this process was duly followed.

together with the application which has been filed by sbi for the extension of time, adr has filed a contempt petition in which it submits, that the information which was directly to be disclosed by this court can easily be disclosed by sbi because of the unique number which is printed on the electoral bond.

irrespective of whether the unique identification number which is not discernible to the naked eye will enable the disclosure of details, the submissions of sbi in the application sufficiently indicate that the information which has been directed to be disclosed by the court is readily available.

yes, my lord. now 12. it can thus be noted that both sets of information were being stored independently of each other.

in view of the about discussion, the miscellaneous application filed by sbi seeking an extension of time, for the disclosure of details of the purchase and redemption of electoral bonds until 30 june 2024 is dismissed.

sbi is directed to disclose the details by the close of business hours, 12 march 2024.

as regards the eci, we direct that eci shall compile the information and publish the details in its official website, no later than by 15 march, by 05:00 p.m. on 15 march 2024.

during the pendency of the proceedings before the constitution bench, eci had in compliance with the interim orders passed by this court, filed its statements which have been maintained in the custody of the court.

copies of the statements which were filed by eci before this court, would be maintained in the office of the eci.

eci shall publish the details of the information which was supplied to this court in pursuance of the interim orders on its website.

the miscellaneous application, the sbi shall file an affidavit of its chairman and managing director, upon compliance with the directions which have been issued above.

while we are not inclined to exercise the contempt jurisdiction at this stage, bearing in mind the application which was submitted for extension of time, we place sbi on notice that this court may be inclined to proceed against it for wilful disobedience to the judgement, if sbi does not comply with the directions of this court as set out in its judgement, dated 15 february 2024, by the timelines indicated in this order.

the miscellaneous application for extension of time shall accordingly stand dismissed.

contempt petitions shall stand disposed of at this stage in the above terms.

thus, to rematch them would be a task requiring significant amount of effort in order to make available donor information.

my lord i just want to say one thing, my lord.

i don't want tomorrow to be again at the end of mr. prashant bhushan's contempt.

your lordships have said, 'disclose (b) and disclose (c)', the directions.

we will disclose both of that. that is easy.

correlating the purchase with the beneficiary is not something which we are required to do and then it's easy.

that will be. so... salve, when my lord, the chief justice dictated the order, it is very clear.

there is no scope for any confusion in the...

what is dictated in the court. lordships.

your lordships, one other diary number, which is the contempt of matter related, diary number 11296. lordship please. thank you.

the date of issue of each bond will have to be checked and matched against the date of purchase by a particular donor.

this exercise would only deal with the first silo of information.

these bonds were redeemed by political parties in their designated bank accounts.

your lordship will find the operative order set out.

accordingly, this information would then have to be matched against the bond redemption information that makes up the second silo.

it is submitted that the retrieval of information from each silo and the procedure of matching the information of one silo to the other would be a time-consuming exercise.

the details are stored separately. some of the details, such as bonds number, are stored digitally, while the other sets of details such as name of purchaser, kyc are stored physically.

the purpose of not storing all details digitally was to ensure that it cannot be gathered easily to achieve the object of the scheme.

and then finally para 14, in that regard, it is further submitted that this court has directed for making public the donor information as a date of its interim order, 12th april 19 to the date of the judgment.

in that time, 22,217 electoral bonds were used for making donations to various political parties.

redeemed bonds were deposited to mumbai main branch by the authorized branches at the end of each phase in sealed envelopes, coupled with the fact that two different information silos existed.

this would mean that a total of 44,434 information set would have to be decoded, compiled and compared.