The State Bank of India’s request to the Supreme Court to extend the deadline to disclose information on electoral bonds indicates that it is shielding the Union government from criticism, a group of retired civil servants said on Saturday in a letter to the Election Commission.
The Supreme Court had on February 15 directed the State Bank of India to issue details of the political parties that received electoral bonds from April 12, 2019, and submit them to the Election Commission by March 6. The court had ordered this while striking down the electoral bonds scheme as unconstitutional, saying that it could lead to quid pro quo arrangements between donors and political parties.
The State Bank of India on March 4 asked the top court to extend the deadline till June 30.
On Saturday, the former bureaucrats, who are part of the Constitutional Conduct Group, said that a “pathetic excuse” had been given by “India’s largest bank with 48 crore accounts and boasting high levels of digitisation” that its records were stored manually.
The letter to the Election Commission said that former general secretary of the All India Banking Officers Confederation Thomas Franco had pointed out that the State Bank of India had in 2018 asked the Union government for more than Rs 60...
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