Election Commission moves SC seeking modification in electoral bonds order

The Election Commission of India has moved the Supreme Court seeking modification in the order in the electoral bonds case. The development comes even as the poll body published data on electoral bonds on its website.

The election commission in its plea on March 14 has sought the return of electoral bonds’ documents handed over to the apex court in sealed cover on two occasions.

It said that it had handed over to the apex court a sealed cover, which contained 106 sealed envelopes, and then sealed boxes containing a total of 523 sealed envelopes in two tranches in pursuance of the judicial orders of April 2019 and November 2023, according to Hindu newspaper.

The ECI said it had not retained copies of these documents. A five-judge Constitution Bench presided by Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud is likely to take up the ECI application on Friday.

The Election Commission on Thursday made the data on electoral bonds public.

Following a Supreme Court directive, the State Bank of India had shared the data with the poll panel on March 12.

The top court had given the Election Commission time till 5 pm of March 15 to upload the data on its website.

The EC has put the details on 'Disclosure of Electoral Bonds submitted by SBI' in two parts.

According to the data uploaded by the poll panel, the buyers of electoral bonds include Grasim Industries, Megha Engineering, Piramal Enterprises, Torrent Power, Bharti Airtel, DLF Commercial Developers, Vedanta Ltd., Apollo Tyres, Lakshmi Mittal, Edelweiss, PVR, Keventer, Sula Wine, Welspun, and Sun Pharma.

The parties that redeemed electoral bonds include the BJP, Congress, AIADMK, BRS, Shiv Sena, TDP, YSR Congress, DMK, JDS, NCP, Trinamool Congress, JDU, RJD, AAP, and the Samajwadi Party, according to the data.

In a landmark verdict delivered on February 15, a five-judge Constitution bench had scrapped the Centre's electoral bonds scheme that allowed anonymous political funding, calling it "unconstitutional" and ordered disclosure by the EC of donors, the amount donated by them and the recipients.

Also watch: Election Commission publishes electoral bonds data