Electoral bonds: Akhilesh Yadav welcomes SC order rejecting SBI’s plea, targets BJP

Lucknow, Mar 11 (PTI) Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav on Monday expressed delight over the Supreme Court’s decision rejecting the SBI’s plea seeking extension of time to furnish the details of electoral bonds to the Election Commission.

When asked to comment on the apex court’s judgement, Yadav said, “The people of the entire country should be informed about this. Glad that at least the list (list of people associated with electoral bonds) will come through the Supreme Court. From this list it will be known to whom the election bonds related to. Now, the question is whether that list will be made public or not.”

The former Uttar Pradesh chief minister also took a dig at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

“Whether you or I will know or not, the BJP knows from where it got donations. If we had received donations, we would have known. Whether the public will know this or not is the biggest question,” he told reporters at the Samajwadi Party (SP) office here.

A five-judge Constitution bench of the Supreme Court on Monday dismissed the State Bank of India’s plea seeking extension of time and directed it to furnish the details of electoral bonds to the Election Commission by close of business hours on March 12.

A bench headed by Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud also directed the Election Commission to publish the details shared by the bank on its official website by 5 pm on March 15.

During the hearing, the bench, also comprising Justices Sanjiv Khanna, B R Gavai, J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, took note of the submissions of senior advocate Harish Salve, appearing for the SBI, that more time was needed for collating the details and matching them as the information were kept in two different silos with its branches.

He further said if the matching exercise is to be done away with, the State Bank of India (SBI) can complete the exercise within three weeks.

In a landmark verdict delivered on February 15, a five-judge Constitution bench scrapped the Centre’s electoral bonds scheme that allowed anonymous political funding, calling it “unconstitutional” and ordered disclosure by the Election Commission of donors, the amount donated by them and the recipients by March 13.

The SBI had sought an extension till June 30 to disclose the details of each electoral bond encashed by the political parties before the scheme was scrapped.