NEW DELHI: India’s Supreme Court on Monday ordered the State Bank of India (SBI) to submit full details of so-called electoral bonds issued under an opaque political financing scheme just a month before the general elections.
More details about the controversial funding mechanism, which was introduced in 2017 but subsequently scrapped, are expected to make public information linking donors to political parties over the past five years and the amount of their donations.
Corporate funding of political parties is a sensitive issue in India, where the scrapping of electoral bonds in February, along with the disclosure of names of donors and recipients, has become a hot topic ahead of elections due in May.
The Supreme Court gave the state-owned lender until Thursday to provide the Election Commission of India with unique identification numbers of the bonds so that donors can be matched with beneficiaries.
“You have to disclose all the details… we have to have it final,” said Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud said.
The Electoral Commission, in turn, was ordered to publish the information “immediately”.
Last week, the commission released some data on donations made since April 2019 under a funding mechanism that allowed anonymous, unlimited donations from companies and individuals using electoral bonds.
