Files in pen drive, password in envelope: How SBI submitted data on electoral bonds to EC

The State of India (SBI) was racing against time. Two days after the Supreme Court (SC) refused to extend the deadline in the electoral bonds case, it filed an affidavit on Wednesday that it had submitted the data to the Election Commission (EC).

Keeping in mind the court’s directions, the SBI, India’s largest lender, furnished details of the purchase and redemption of electoral bonds.

What does the SBI data reveal?

According to the bank’s affidavit, a total of 22,217 electoral bonds were issued between April 2019 and 15 February 2024, before the Supreme Court scrapped the scheme.

Within this, 3,346 bonds were purchased between 1 April 2019 and 11 April 2019, of which 1,609 bonds were redeemed. Further, 18,871 bonds were purchased between 12 April 2019 and 15 February 2024, according to the affidavit. Out of the total 22,217 bonds purchased, 22,030 bonds were redeemed

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The remaining 187, the bank said, was redeemed and the money was deposited to the Prime Minister’s national relief fund, according to the rules.

The now-junked scheme allowed donors to purchase and donate electoral bonds to political parties. These were to be redeemed within 15 days, failing which the amount would go to the PM’s fund.

SBI has provided the EC with the date of purchase and denomination of the bond, the names of political parties who have redeemed them along with the relevant date and denomination, according to the compliance affidavit submitted to the Supreme Court. However, the affidavit does not mention whether the unique code on each electoral bond that could be used to match the donation to the party that received it is part of the data, reports The Indian Express.

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In the affidavit, the SBI chairman said the bank “has ready records in which the date of purchase, denomination and name of the buyer were recorded, and [in relation to the political parties] the date of encashment and the denominations of the bonds encashed were recorded”.

It added that the record of the information was made available to the EC “before the close of business hours” on Tuesday. It was hand-delivered in a “digital form (password protected)”.

Also read: Supreme Court delivers verdict on electoral bonds: Why are they contentious?

How SBI shared the data

The SBI shared the data on electoral bonds with the EC in two separate password-protected PDF files stored in a pen drive. A separate envelope containing passwords to open the PDF files was shared, a letter written by SBI’s deputy managing director to the EC reveals.

The first PDF file contained the details of purchasers and the second had the names of political parties who encashed these bonds, according to the letter made available as part of the affidavit filed by SBI chairman Dinesh Khara in the Supreme Court, reports moneycontrol.

How SBI met the deadline

The SC, which declared electoral bonds “unconstitutional” in a landmark verdict on 15 February, had ordered SBI to stop issuing them immediately. It had set a deadline of 6 March for the bank to submit the data.

But the bank requested the court for an extension until 30 June, which was challenged by the Association for Democratic Reforms, one of the petitioners who had opposed the electoral bonds scheme.

Also read: SC verdict on electoral bonds: How much did the BJP earn? What about Congress, others?

SBI had, in its plea, told the apex court that details of purchases of electoral bonds at the branches are not maintained centrally at any one place but in two different silos. “No central database was maintained. This was done so as to ensure that donors’ anonymity would be protected,” the bank said.

It said that “retrieval of information from each silo and the procedure of matching the information of one silo to that of the other would be a time-consuming exercise”. Furthermore, the bank stated that donor details are kept in sealed covers, which are deposited in the main branch in Mumbai.

However, the top court on Monday turned down SBI’s request and set a 24-hour deadline for it to share the details.

This meant that the bank had to act swiftly. To gather information on all bonds collected at its various branches across the country was a mammoth task.

The timing made a difference. With 31 March being the last day of the financial year, banks are busy with closing. Hence, diverting resources to collect data on electoral bonds was challenging.

“How is this to be appreciated? The SBI had asked for time, not to hide date, but to ensure that data is collected and curated correctly and in an organised manner,” a top government source told News18.

But despite a tight deadline, SBI submitted the data on Tuesday evening.

What happens next?

With the earlier 6 March deadline for SBI to submit the data, the EC had been asked to make it public by 13 March.

Now, the EC has been asked to upload the data on its website by 5 pm on Friday.

Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar said on Wednesday that the poll body will disclose electoral bonds data on time. “We have three pillars – disclosure, disclosure & disclosure. Disclose everything to people. The commission has been in favour of transparency. SBI has given us in time, and we have received it. We will disclose it on time,” he said when asked about the SBI sending electoral bonds data to the ECI as per the Supreme Court’s order.

The CEC’s remark came during a press conference in Srinagar after reviewing election preparedness in Jammu and Kashmir.

With inputs from agencies