THREE days, Rs 10,000 crore electoral bonds: Why did govt clear printing just before SC scrapped scheme?

The timing of the government approving the printing of a large amount of electoral bonds just before the Supreme Court struck down the scheme entirely has raised questions. The Supreme Court declared the Electoral Bond Scheme unconstitutional on February 28 and asked the State Bank of India to ‘immediately put a hold’ on printing of the bonds. The scheme allowed anonymous donations to political parties.

Just three days before the Supreme Court's decision, the government approved the printing of a significant amount of Rs 10,000 crore of these bonds each of Rs 1 crore by the SPMCIL (the Security Printing and Minting Corporation of India).

According to the information, the BJP redeemed Rs 8,451 crore, the Congress Rs 1,950 crore, the Trinamool Congress Rs 1,707.81 crore and the BRS Rs 1,407.30 crore. A total of 22,217 electoral bonds were redeemed since the scheme's inception, according to a file noting correspondence and emails exchanged between the Finance Ministry and SBI obtained by Indian Express under the Right to Information Act.

These records also reveal that the SPMCIL had already printed and dispatched 8,350 bonds to the SBI.

The sources also reveal that the order for printing 400 booklets and 10,000 Electoral Bonds and that the approval of the “Government of India” for placing the order to SPMCIL was finally given on February 12.

After this, another mail was sent out the same day from the Finance Ministry’s Budget section to the SBI and others in the Ministry asking to immediately put a hold on the printing of the remaining 1,650 electoral bonds for which the approval was already given.