Election Commission Uploads Electoral Bonds Data On Website As Per Supreme Court's Direction

The Election Commission of India has uploaded on its website the data supplied by the State Bank of India regarding electoral bonds.

The Election Commission of India has today uploaded the data on electoral bonds on its website as received from SBI on an "as is where is basis", the ECI said in a press release.

The data as retrieved from SBI can be accessed at this URL : https://www.eci.gov.in/disclosure-of-electoral-bonds.

Two sets of files can be seen on the webpage. One set contains the purchase details - date of purchase of the electoral bond, the name of the purchaser and the denomination.

The second set contains the political parties' details- date of encashment, the name of the political party and the denomination. Notably, no link between the purchaser and the party is discernible from the files.

On March 11, the Supreme Court had refused the SBI's plea to extend the time till June 30 to furnish the electoral bonds information and directed it to supply to the ECI on March 12 itself. Yesterday, the SBI Chairman filed a compliance affidavit before the Supreme Court affirming that the data was given to the ECI in two PDF files (one with purchase details and the other with encashment details).

As per the Supreme Court's direction, the ECI was required to furnish the data by March 15.

Before the Supreme Court, the SBI submitted that the process of linking donors with parties was time-consuming. However, the Court said that as per the February 15 judgment, the SBI is not required to do any "matching exercise" and has to do only a plain disclosure.