Truth revealed from SBI data, when and how many electoral bonds were purchased?

Electoral Bonds Case: Following the order of the Supreme Court, State Bank of India (SBI) has submitted all the data of electoral bonds to the Election Commission. Along with this, an affidavit has also been filed in the Supreme Court on behalf of SBI Chairman Dinesh Khara to give this information. Many such information have come to light in this affidavit which tells how many electoral bonds were purchased in the country. How many were cashed in by political parties? Now the responsibility of making these data public is on the Election Commission by 5 pm on March 15, 2024.

In the affidavit submitted in the Supreme Court, it has been said that a total of 3,346 bonds were purchased within the country from April 1, 2019 to April 11, 2019. Whereas from 12 April 2019 to 15 February 2024, a total of 18,872 bonds were purchased. In this way a total of 22,217 electoral bonds were purchased in the country.

A total of 187 bonds were not cashed.

SBI data shows that out of the total 22,217 electoral bonds purchased, only 22,030 bonds were encashed by political parties. That means there were 187 bonds whose donations were not received by any political party. In such a situation, according to the rules related to electoral bonds, the amount of these 187 bonds was deposited in the Prime Minister's Relief Fund. According to the Electoral Bond Law, if an electoral bond is not encashed within 15 days from the date of purchase, then SBI deposits it in the Prime Minister's Relief Fund.

This does not make any difference to the tax liability of the donor. Just as when donations are made to political parties recognized by the Election Commission, the donor gets 100 percent tax exemption on that amount. Similarly, the amount deposited in the Prime Minister's Relief Fund also gets 100 percent tax exemption under the Income Tax Act.

Supreme Court adopted a tough stance

While hearing the case of electoral bonds, the Supreme Court had declared it unconstitutional on 15 February. This was considered a violation of the ‘Right to Information’ given under Article 19 of the Indian Constitution. After this, SBI was asked to hand over all the data related to this to the Election Commission by March 6. But SBI had asked for an extension till June 30 for this. However, the Supreme Court took a tough stand on this and heard SBI's extension petition on March 11.

After this, the Supreme Court gave time to SBI till the evening of March 12, according to which SBI has now handed over all the data to the Election Commission. If SBI had failed to do so, it would have faced contempt action as per the order of the Supreme Court.