ECI moves SC seeking modification of March 11 order; hearing on Friday

The Election Commission of India (ECI) moved the Supreme Court on seeking modification/clarification of its March 11 order. The case will be heard on Friday. The ECI also sought the release of documents submitted by the ECI before the top court in sealed covers.

"In compliance with the orders passed by this Hon'ble Court and in order to maintain the confidentiality of the aforesaid information/data, the Election Commission of India forwarded the documents received by it to this Hon'ble Court in sealed covers/boxes, without retaining any copies of the same. Thus, no copies of the documents/statements filed by the Election Commission of India before this Hon'ble Court in the instant case were ever retained by it," the ECI plea said.

The ECI said the order of March 11 'may be rectified/modified and the aforementioned documents/data/information so submitted by the Election Commission of India before this Hon'ble Court in sealed covers/boxes may be returned to it, to enable the Election Commission of India to comply with the directions' of the Supreme Court.

The five-judge bench on Monday asked the Election Commission of India to publish the details of the information supplied to the court in pursuance of its interim order, on the commission's website. By this interim order issued in November last year, the court had asked the ECI to furnish details of the funds received by all the political parties through electoral bonds till September 30 in a sealed cover.

"Whatever the Election Commission of India has placed before us, we'll open it. In pursuance of an interim order, the Election Commission had furnished details. The registry has placed it in secured custody. We will direct them to open it right now," Chief Justice Chandrachud said during the hearing.

The plea by ECI comes after the details submitted by the State Bank of India (SBI) was uploaded on the ECI website by 7:55 pm on Thursday, complying with the Supreme Court's order of March 11.

The State Bank of India (SBI) on Wednesday had filed a compliance affidavit in the Supreme Court, saying that it has submitted details of electoral bonds to the Election Commission.

In the affidavit, the country’s largest state-run bank told the apex court that 22,217 electoral bonds were purchased and 22,030 were redeemed by political parties between April 1, 2019, and February 15, 2024.

The court had come down heavily on SBI on Monday for seeking an extension to furnish electoral bonds details and told the bank to disclose the information to the Election Commission by close of business hours on March 12 (Tuesday).

With this, the plea by SBI seeking an extension of time till June 30, 2024, to give details of electoral bonds from April 12, 2019, to February 15, 2024, was dismissed. The ECI was supposed to publish the details on its website by 5 pm on March 15, which it has done.