The Supreme Court asked the State Bank of India to reveal the date about all electoral bonds, the alphanumeric numbers, to the Election Commission of India by 5 pm on March 21, 2024. Asked to disclose all data till March 21A five-judge bench headed by CJI DY Chandrachud said the apex court had, in its verdict in the electoral bonds case, asked the bank to disclose all the details of the bonds and it should not wait for further orders on this aspect.The CJI bench also includes Justice Sanjiv Khanna, Justice BR Gavai, Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice Manoj Mishra. The bench said that SBI cannot adopt a selective approach and it has to disclose all potential information about electoral bonds, including specific bond numbers.The Election Commission of India had released the first detailed data on electoral bonds on March 15, and second detailed list on March 17 in digitized form from the registry of the Supreme Court on electoral bonds on its website. BJP got highest electoral bondsThe rulling Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) received the maximum funds through these bonds at Rs 6,986 crore since they were introduced in 2018, followed by Trinamool Congress (Rs 1.397 crore), Congress (Rs 1,334 crore). However, several poltical parties declined to share information of electoral bond donors citing various legal provisions, while others said they received the funding instruments through drop box or by post without any name. SC termed electoral bonds unconstitutionalIn a historic verdict on February 15, a five-member Constitution bench had struck down the Centres electoral bond scheme, terming it unconstitutional, and on March 13, the Election Commission had to file a report on donors, donations and recipients. Was ordered to disclose till.Meanwhile, on April 12, 2019, the Supreme Court passed an interim order asking the Election Commission to provide information about the political parties, the donations received by them and the donations to be received in future, in a sealed envelope.
