The State Bank of India (SBI) has appealed to the Supreme Court for an extension of the deadline until June 30th to furnish information regarding electoral bonds to the Election Commission.
In a significant ruling on February 15th, the Supreme Court invalidated the electoral bonds scheme for political funding, citing infringement upon the Constitutional rights to freedom of speech and expression, as well as the right to information.
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Months before the Lok Sabha elections, the apex court mandated that the SBI disclose the identities of contributors to the six-year-old scheme to the Election Commission by March 6th.
A five-judge Constitution bench, led by Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud, directed the SBI to divulge details of each electoral bond encashed by political parties, including the date of encashment and denomination of the bonds. This information must be submitted to the poll panel by March 6th.
Furthermore, the bench instructed that the Election Commission should publish the data provided by SBI on its official website by March 13th.
