SBI Deletes FAQs on Electoral Bonds Days After SC Scraps Scheme on Political Funding

The State Bank of India (SBI) deleted Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) days after the Supreme Court's landmark verdict ahead of the Lok Sabha election on scrapping the Electoral Bond Scheme that allowed anonymous funding to political parties. The section had FAQs and guidelines on the scheme as well as the paperwork for donors and political parties.  

Earlier, the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) filed a contempt petition against SBI for wilful disobedience of the apex court order mandating the leading public sector bank to disclose the details of encashed Electoral Bonds to the Election Commission by March 6. 

.@TheOfficialSBI has now deleted the FAQ on #ElectoralBonds that was available at this urlhttps://t.co/nDgwvEzjOa

It only proves that SBI has a lot to hide

In the document SBI describes KYC details captured and its internal account where money is parked on purchase of bond. pic.twitter.com/HyPuOujvyZ

— Nagrik 🇮🇳 - INDIA Jeetega 🇮🇳 (@indian_nagrik) March 7, 2024

In its application filed two days before the expiry of the deadline set out by the apex court, the SBI said that "decoding" of the Electoral Bonds and the matching of the donor to the donations is a complex and time-consuming exercise and the timeline of three weeks would not be sufficient for the entire exercise to be completed.

The opposition attacked the Centre over the SBI moving the apext court to seek more time to disclose electoral bond details, alleging that the Modi government is using the largest bank of the country as a shield to hide its "dubious dealings".