State Bank of India declines to provide information about electoral bonds under the RTI Act
State Bank of India
Even though the records are available to the public on the website of the poll panel, the State Bank of India (SBI) has declined to provide the Election Commission (EC) with the details of the electoral bonds it provided, citing that it is personal information kept in a fiduciary position. This refusal is in violation of the RTI Act.
The Supreme Court ordered the SBI on February 15 to provide the EC with all of the information regarding the bonds bought since April 12, 2019, citing the electoral bonds scheme as “unconstitutional and manifestly arbitrary.” The EC was then required to post the details on its website by March 13.
The SBI’s petition for an extension of the deadline was denied by the court on March 11; instead, it was directed to provide the EC with the electoral bond details by the end of business on March 12.
On March 13, retired Commodore Lokesh Batra, an RTI activist, went to the SBI to request the digital version of all the electoral bond data that had been sent to the EC following the Supreme Court’s ruling.
The bank refused to provide the information, citing two exemption clauses from the Right to Information (RTI) Act: section 8(1)(j), which permits withholding personal information, and section 8(1)(e), which relates to data held in a fiduciary position.
The response provided by the SBI’s deputy general manager and central public information officer on Wednesday stated, “Information sought by you contains details of purchasers and political parties and hence, cannot be disclosed as it is held in fiduciary capacity disclosure of which is exempted under sections 8(1)(e) and (j) of the RTI Act.”
Batra had additionally requested information about the expenses that the State Bank of India paid top lawyer Harish Salve in order to support its argument against the release of the electoral bond records. The argument was that the records were held in a fiduciary capacity and contained personal information.
It is “bizzare” that the SBI denied the information that is already on the EC’s website,
Regarding Salve’s charge, he said the bank had withheld information pertaining to funds belonging to the government.
The information provided by the SBI, including the identities of the contributors and political parties that redeemed the bonds, was made public by the EC on its website on March 14.
The Supreme Court chastised the State Bank of India (SBI) on March 15 for failing to provide all relevant information, including the unique numbers associated with each electoral bond that could be used to identify donors with recipient political parties. The court stated that the bank had a “duty-bound” to disclose this information.
Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud’s five-judge panel declared that it had ordered the publication of all bond information, including the names, amounts, and purchase dates of each bond.
A day after the EC released the whole list of organizations that bought the bonds in order to make political donations, the CJI said that the SBI was required to provide all facts as the court chastised the bank for providing insufficient information.
Between April 1, 2019, and February 15, this year, donors bought 22,217 electoral bonds of various denominations, of which political parties redeemed 22,030, according to the SBI.
