The Supreme Court scheduled the hearing of ADR’s contempt plea against the State Bank of India (SBI) for March 11, 2024, in the electoral bonds case.
On Monday, the SBI had approached the apex court, seeking an extension to the deadline for disclosing details of electoral bonds cashed by political parties, as it had surpassed the earlier March 6 deadline set by the Supreme Court.
In response, the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) filed a contempt plea against SBI, accusing it of deliberate disobedience of the Supreme Court’s judgment. ADR labeled the SBI application as “mala fide” and a “wilful and deliberate defiance” of the apex court’s ruling.
During the court proceedings, advocate Prashant Bhushan expressed concerns over SBI’s non-compliance with the directive to disclose electoral bond details to the Election Commission of India (EC) by March 6. Bhushan informed Chief Justice of India Chandrachud, stating, “SBI has filed an application for an extension which is likely to be listed on Monday. Meanwhile, the Association for Democratic Reforms has filed a contempt petition. We are requesting that our application also be listed alongside that.”
In response, the Supreme Court directed Bhushan to send an email regarding the plea and confirmed that the matter would be heard on March 11.
SBI’s Move to SC Regarding Deadline Extension for Electoral Bonds
The SBI failed to meet the March 6 deadline, set by the Supreme Court, for sharing details of the electoral bonds encashed by political parties. The bank had moved the Supreme Court on Monday, seeking an extension of time till June 30 to disclose details of each electoral bond encashed by the political parties.
In February, a five-judge constitution bench led by Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud had invalidated the electoral bonds scheme and directed the SBI to disclose details of each electoral bond encashed by the political parties.
The information, including the date of encashment and the denomination of the bonds, should be submitted to the poll panel by March 6, as ordered by the court.
In its application before the apex court, the SBI argued that retrieval of information from “each silo” and the process of matching the information of one silo to that of the other would be a time-consuming exercise.
The bench also directed that the Election Commission (EC) should publish the information shared by the SBI on its official website by March 13.
