Electoral bonds: Yet again, SBI refuses to disclose details under RTI Act

The State Bank of India (SBI) has yet again refused to disclose information on electoral bonds under the RTI Act. The SBI was responsible for issuing and encashing the bonds.

In February, the Supreme Court scrapped the electoral bonds scheme, which had allowed both individuals and companies to donate money to political parties anonymously, and called it unconstitutional on the grounds that it violated the people’s right to know who was funding political parties. The BJP-led Union government had notified the scheme on 2 January 2018.

Citing the Supreme Court verdict, director of the NGO Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative Venkatesh Nayak had sought a copy of all internal guidelines issued by SBI's corporate centre to authorised branches under the Electoral Bond Scheme 2018 to ascertain the genuineness of every electoral bond instrument encashed by eligible political parties and a copy of all other internal guidelines issued by the corporate centre to authorised branches with regard to the sale and encashment of the bonds.

However, SBI again cited section 8.1(d) of the RTI Act to deny the information. “The internal guidelines were strictly meant for the dealing staff and are the information of commercial confidence and intellectual property of the bank.”

The bank said the internal guidelines for the Electoral Bond Scheme 2018 issued to the authorised branches from time to time with regard to the sale and encashment of the bonds are meant for internal circulation only. “Hence, denied under Section 8.1(d) of the RTI Act.”

The Section 8.1(d) of the RTI Act states that information which includes “commercial confidence, trade secrets or intellectual property, the disclosure of which would harm the competitive position of a third party” can be denied unless the competent authority is satisfied that larger public interest warrants the disclosure of such information.

Nayak underscored that the CPIO's (the bank's central public information officer) reply amounts to a mockery of the Supreme Court's judgement, which laid down the principle of complete transparency with regard to electoral bonds. Internal guidelines used by bank staff for dealing with purchase and encashment transactions are in the nature of information that must be disclosed suo motu under section 4(1) (b) (v) of the RTI Act.

“SBI cannot legitimately claim any exception for itself from this mandatory requirement. Starting from 2012 in the CBSE case down to Kishan Chand Jain in 2023, the Supreme Court has ruled that section 4 disclosures are mandatory. In the Kishan Chand Jain case, the court has given legal validity to the guidelines which the Union government circulated in 2013 for implementing the suo motu disclosure provisions of the Act,” explained Nayak.

The EB scheme has been struck down, the internal guidelines issued to implement that scheme are of academic interest only, said Nayak, and nevertheless SBI chooses opacity for no comprehensible reason.

He was a member of the task force which developed the disclosure guidelines after holding widespread consultations with public authorities and civil society and he said it was “very disappointing to see SBI openly flouting not only the transparency principle that the apex court laid down for EBs but also the court's directive to strictly implement Section 4(1) (b) of the RTI Act".

Nayak had also sought the denomination-wise number of electoral bond instruments presented to authorised branches for the purpose of encashment which were subsequently detected to be fake, since the inception of the scheme. The SBI, in its response, stated that “no fake electoral bond” has been presented for encashment at any of the authorised branches.

Last month, the SBI had denied him information regarding the name of all official documents, whether maintained in paper-based or electronic form, in which the unique identifying number inscribed/printed on every electoral bond was recorded at the time of its sale to an eligible applicant and at the time of its presentation by an eligible political party for the purpose of redemption.

He had also requested for a legible copy of all official records which contain the procedure that was adopted to ascertain the genuineness of every electoral bond deposited by every recipient political party for the purpose of redemption.

In April, Anjali Bhardwaj of the Delhi-based NGO Society for Citizens Vigilance Initiatives also sought information from SBI on the standard operating procedures on the sale and redemption of electoral bonds. Then too it was denied stating Section 8.1(d) of the Act.