Supreme Court pulls up SBI: Don’t do selective disclosure, give poll bond numbers, full details

The unique alphanumeric codes would enable matching the poll bond donors with the recipients.

The Bench, which included Justices Sanjiv Khanna, B R Gavai, J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, however, rejected a request to direct SBI to disclose the unique codes of bonds purchased or redeemed prior to its interim order on April 12, 2019.

“To fully effectuate (its) order and to obviate any controversy in the future”, the Bench also asked the SBI Chairman and Managing Director to file an affidavit, on or before March 21, 5 pm, “indicating that SBI has disclosed all details of the electoral bonds which were in its possession and custody and that no details have been withheld…”

Referring to its earlier orders, the court said the operative directions required the SBI to submit details of electoral bonds purchased since the interim order. The Bench recalled that it had said that “such details…shall include the date of purchase of each electoral bond, the name of the purchaser of the bond and the denomimation of the electoral bond purchased”.

“SBI was required to disclose details of each electoral bond encashed by political parties, inclusive of the date of encashment and the denomination of the electoral bond,” the court said. Read with its February 15, 2024 decision to strike down the electoral bond scheme, this “indicates that SBI was required to submit all details, both in terms of the purchase and in terms of receipt of contributions.” it said.

“The expression ‘include’… clearly demonstrates that the inclusive part was treated as illustrative and not exhaustive of the nature of disclosure which was to be made by SBI… In other words, there is no manner of doubt that SBI is required to make a complete disclosure of all details in its possession,” the court said, adding, “This, we clarify, would comprehend the alphanumeric number and the serial number, if any, of the bonds which were purchased and redeemed”.

The court also asked the EC to “forthwith” upload the details furnished by the SBI.

On March 15, the court had issued notice to the SBI, saying the bank was “duty-bound” to furnish the unique alphanumeric codes.

Hearing the bank’s response on Monday, the CJI said: “We had expressly asked SBI to disclose all details. The language of the judgment was that all details have to be disclosed. Therefore, that includes the bond numbers as well”.

“Let SBI not be selective in the disclosure of details … it shall disclose all details, including the bond numbers and every part of the information which is in its possession and custody. Don’t wait for an order of the court. We banked on the fact that the State Bank of India would be candid and fair to the court,” he said.

Asking why the bank had not disclosed the details, the CJI said: “SBI’s attitude appears to be — you tell us to disclose a particular detail and we will disclose it. That’s not a fair process.”

The SBI chairman should have said this being the order of the SC, I am duty bound to comply with it and will disclose every part of the information which is in my custody as directed, he said.

“Because when we said all details of the purchases, that meant every conceivable detail which was available with SBI, and we clarified it by saying ‘include’. SBI has the best legal advice open to it,” the CJI said.

Senior Advocate Harish Salve, appearing for SBI, said the bank was ready to give all information, and sought to explain how it had understood the court’s 2019 interim order and the February 15 judgment.

“We will give everything, there is no problem. The impression which is being created is that the SBI is playing ducks and drakes with the court. Just wanted to clear that up,” he said.

Salve said the April 2019 interim order was to political parties to furnish bond details to the ECI. “Political party does not need a bond number. If a political party comes and says I have received so much from so and so,” he said.

The CJI then remarked: “We take it that you are not arguing a case for a political party.”

Saying that he was not appearing for any political party, Salve said paragraph 16 of the interim order “only required political parties to give all these details, and these details have been given. If they have not been given, that’s between the ECI and political parties… Para 17 was the mechanism for disclosure”.

The senior counsel said that in its February 15 judgment, “the court dealt with diverse aspects, including the need to preserve some degree of anonymity, and discussed electoral trust as an alternative to this system…”

Salve said that at the time of the interim order, “we were functioning under the edict of anonymity, which had not been stayed. So, at that time, we were directed to preserve the anonymity…”

He added that if the court feels that all the information should be given now, the bank was willing to do so.

“We will clarify to put it beyond any doubt… we will say that now SBI will not only disclose the bond numbers, but it shall also file an affidavit again before our court saying that you have not suppressed any (details)… You have to disclose all details, let that be clear. Because the burden should not lie upon the court or the petitioners to say that this has not been disclosed, that has not been disclosed… We must have finality to it,” the CJI told him.

“We will do it. There is no problem, just that those in the media are constantly beating down… and petitioners giving interviews saying we will take the SBI to task, we will hold them up for contempt etc… We are also a public institution working in the space,” Salve said.

He said that at the interim order stage, he had not come across any order which said all further action would be subject to the judgment of the court. “There was no such direction,” he said, adding, “now, whether completely, you should lift the privacy or remove anonymity, matter of Your Lordships writ”.

Justice Khanna said “the idea behind the interim order was that in case the writ petition is allowed, then data should come out and that’s exactly what is required”.

“We will give every bit of information — relevant, not relevant — which we have so that there is no feeling that SBI is somehow interested in holding something back,” Salve said.

Advocate Prashant Bhushan said that despite the interim order, only a few political parties had revealed details of bond purchases to the ECI and, therefore, disclosure of the details should start from the date of issue of the bonds scheme, and not just from the interim order.

The court, however, rejected this, saying, “Right or wrong, we have taken a conscious decision that the cut-off will be the date of our interim order”.

“Of course, the Constitution Bench has an option to go all the way back to the date of the bond… we took April 12, 2019 because it was our considered view that once an interim order was pronounced, everybody was on notice… Now, we have maintained that. If you want that to go back… that’s in a nature of review of the judgement… We had to draw the line somewhere, we had to hold the balance,” the court said.