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New Delhi: The State Bank of India (SBI) has asked the Supreme Court for more than three months’ extra time to furnish details around the now-scrapped electoral bonds scheme to the Election Commission, news reports have said.

Legal news site LiveLaw reported that the bank has asked for time until June 30 this year citing difficulties in following the court’s original deadline of March 6.

According to LiveLaw, the SBI said that 22,217 bonds had been issued to various political parties between April 2019 and February 15 this year – this is the period the Supreme Court had specified in its order – and that redeemed bonds were gradually mailed by the bank’s authorised branches to its main branch in Mumbai.

The bank added that because there were two ‘information silos’, it had to compile 44,434 sets of information, LiveLaw‘s report said.

In its February 15 order, the Supreme Court said electoral bonds violated voters’ fundamental right to information and ordered the SBI to stop issuing them.

It also ordered the bank to furnish the details of electoral bonds purchased between an interim order it issued on April 12, 2019 and the date of its judgement.

These details must include the date the bonds were purchased on, the names of who purchased them and the bonds’ denominations.

The court also ordered the bank to submit the details of bonds encashed by political parties in the concerned time period.

Relevant details must include “the date of encashment and the denomination of the electoral bond”, the court said.

The Election Commission was ordered to publish on its website by March 13 the information given to it by the SBI.

This is a developing story.