After the electoral bonds data was released as part of the disclosure of 2018-19, some political parties have ‘shied’ away to acknowledge donors and said they were unaware of the ‘content’ in the packet delivered at their premises at some point of time while the maximum amount of recipients of funds the BJP, the Congress, the Trinamool Congress (TMC) and Telugu Desam Party (TDP) have not shared any details about their donors.
Some said they received the funding instruments through “drop box” or by post without any name.
In a related development, the Supreme Court on Monday directed the State Bank of India (SBI) to disclose all details related to electoral bonds, including the date of purchase and redemption, the name of the purchaser and recipient, denomination, and alphanumeric numbers and serial bonds.
The court also ordered chairman of SBI Dinesh Kumar Khara, to file an affidavit by 5 pm on Thursday, indicating that all details in its custody have been disclosed and that no details have been withheld.
The data related to electoral bonds disclosed that the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) mentioned “not readily available” in the column for listing out the names of donors while the Trinamool Congress (TMC) said the electoral bonds were sent to the party office and were “dropped in the drop box”.
The party said some bonds were sent through messengers from various persons who wished to support the party, many of whom prefer to remain anonymous.
The NCP, then led by Sharad Pawar, expressed inability to furnish details of donors against each bond as the party had not maintained details or issued any receipts.
The letter by the NCP to the Election Commission said several of its office-bearers were busy with the election campaign. “Wherever possible we have indicated the name of the person through whom bonds were received by the party,” the NCP said.
The BJP cited the amendments to the Representation of People Act, 1951 and the relevant portions of the Reserve Bank of India Act and the Income Tax Act for not revealing its donors.
“It is duly submitted that the electoral bonds were introduced with the aim of bringing only accounted funds in political funding while protecting the donors from any consequences, therefrom,” the BJP said in its letter to the Election Commission.
The Congress shot off a letter to the State Bank of India (SBI) seeking details of donors of electoral bonds, the amount, the bank account in which it was credited and the date.
The SBI responded to the Congress that the details of the electoral bonds were available with the political parties and shared the statement of the bank account which was shared with the Commission.
The DMK, which received most of its donations from a lottery firm, reached out to its donors to seek details of the electoral bonds as demanded by the Supreme Court in 2019.
The DMK, which received almost 77 per cent of its funds from lottery king Santiago Martin’s Future Gaming, said it had reached out to the donors of the party to get details of the donations they had made.
“The scheme also does not require the details of the donor to be furnished to the donee. ... Be that as it may, following the directions of Supreme Court, we contacted our donors and we were able to collect the details from them,” the DMK said.
The Goa unit of the Congress reached out to its donor VM Salgaonkar and Brothers to get details of the electoral bonds worth Rs 30 lakh given by them to the party.
The RJD said the details about donations worth Rs 1.5 crore were not readily available. The Nitish Kumar-led Janata Dal (United) has told the Election Commission that someone delivered to its office an envelope with electoral bonds worth Rs 10 crore in 2019, which were redeemed by the party.
Earlier, during the hearing in the Supreme Court on Monday, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said after the March 11 order (on SBI’s plea time till June 30 to furnish details of electoral bonds to the EC), those before the court started giving press interviews “deliberately embarrassing the court” and as nobody can rebut that from this side.
“Based upon the twisted and other statistics, any kind of posts are being made. I know your lordships cannot control that,” Mehta said, appearing for the Centre. The CJI, however, said the court is only concerned about enforcing its directions issued in the verdict.
“As judges, we decide according to the Constitution. We are governed by the rule of law. We are also the subject matter of comments in the social media and the press. But surely, as an institution, our shoulders are broad enough,” the CJI said.
“Our court has an institutional role to play in a polity which is governed by the Constitution and the rule of law. That is the only job,” Justice Chandrachud said.
The CJI said once the court delivers a judgement, it becomes the nation’s property, open for debate. Mehta said his purpose was to inform the apex court that there is “something else playing out” which neither the court intended nor the scheme intended.
“I have something to share and I have been watching this very painfully outside the court. Your lordships sit in a kind of a silo. Your lordships are in an ivory tower, not in a negative sense of the term, but what we know here, your lordships never come to know,” the solicitor general said.
Mehta said the SBI’s application, seeking an extension of time till June 30 to furnish the details of electoral bonds to the EC, came up for hearing on March 11 and the court clarified the position.
“Thereafter, a series, a barrage of social media posts at least intended to cause embarrassment started during these two days... ,” Mehta said. The apex court told the SBI to make “complete disclosure” of all details related to the electoral bonds scheme by March 21.
