Supreme Court Asks Election Commission To Submit Data Of Electoral Bonds Funding Received By Political Parties Till Sep 30

The Supreme Court on Thursday (November 2) directed Election Commission of India to get the details of the funds received by all the political parties through Electoral Bonds till September 30 and submit the data to the Court. The data has to be submitted to the Registry of the Court in a sealed cover.

A Constitution Bench, which is hearing a batch of petitions challenging the electoral bonds scheme, passed the direction. During the hearing, the Bench led by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud also expressed displeasure with the ECI for not having the data of the electoral bonds donation till date.  The Bench pointed out that as per the interim order passed on April 12, 2019, the ECI was obliged to maintain the data of electoral bond fundings till date.

Advocate Amit Sharma, appearing for the EC, told the Court that the poll panel was under the impression that the April 2019 order was pertaining to only the electoral bonds issued in relation to the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Refusing to accept this submission, the Bench said that the order was clear that the data had to be continuously collected.

"But we didn't freeze the data which was to be maintained. You were to continue collecting the data," CJI DY Chandrachud said. Justice Sanjiv Khanna said that the ECI should. have sought for a clarification from the Court if there was a doubt.

"You should have got the data when you were coming to the court...we read out that order that day. All of us expressed a view and we expected you to come back with that data," Justice Khanna added.

"We will not ask SBI to reveal the identity of donors at this stage. That nobody is interested in at the present stage but we would like to know the quantum," CJI said.

ECI then agreed to collate the data til the present date. The counsel also handed over to the Court the sealed cover containing the data furnished by the political parties in terms of the April 2019 order.

In the April 2019 order, the Court directed "all the political parties who have received donations through Electoral Bonds to submit to the Election Commission of India in sealed cover, detailed particulars of the donors as against the each Bond; the amount of each such bond and the full particulars of the credit received against each bond, namely, the particulars of the bank account to which the amount has been credited and the date of each such credit." As per the order, the details were to be given to the Court in a sealed cover.

Click here to read the order