EC releases fresh electoral bond details submitted by political parties

Political parties had filed data on Electoral Bonds in sealed cover as directed by the Supreme Court’s interim order dated April 12, 2019, the poll panel said in a statement.

“Data so received from political parties was deposited in the Supreme Court without opening sealed covers. In pursuance of the Supreme Court’s order dated March 15, 2024, the Registry of the Supreme Court has returned physical copies along with a digitized record of the same in a pen drive in sealed cover. The Election Commission of India has today uploaded the data received in the digitized form from the registry of the Supreme Court on electoral bonds on its website,” EC said.

Public disclosure by ECI of the data relating to electoral bonds as
returned by the Supreme Court registry can be found at this link : https://t.co/VTYdeSLhcg pic.twitter.com/x1BANQDjfx

— Spokesperson ECI (@SpokespersonECI) March 17, 2024

Last Thursday, the EC had released the data on electoral bonds issued from April 12, 2019 to February 15, 2024, even as it approached the Supreme Court asking it to return the data on the preceding period so that it could also be made public.

The ECI had submitted the details of poll bonds sold and encashed before April 12, 2019 to the Supreme Court in accordance with the top court’s interim orders passed on April 12, 2019 and November 2, 2023.

On March 11, while rejecting SBI’s request for more time to furnish the data on sale and redemption of the poll bonds, the Bench asked the ECI to also publish the earlier data as well, noting that copies of it “would be maintained in the Office of the ECI”.

Urging the court to modify this part of the March 11 order, the ECI said it had not retained any copies of the documents to maintain confidentiality. In order to upload these details, the ECI said, the court will have to return the sealed cover documents.

While scrapping the 2018 poll bonds scheme, the Supreme Court had directed the SBI to give the ECI the data by March 6. The ECI was instructed to publish the data by March 13.

On Thursday, as it uploaded the data on its website, the ECI said, “It may be recalled that in the said matter, ECI has consistently and categorically weighed in favour of disclosure and transparency, a position reflected in the proceedings of the Supreme court and noted in the order also.”