The Supreme Court on Friday asked the State Bank of India (SBI) to publish the numbers (unique alpha-numeric details) on all the electoral bonds by March 16. The numbers reveal the links between donors and political parties, that is, who donated to which party specifically. On March 12, the SBI had submitted data on the bonds to the Election Commission of India (ECI). Miffed that the SBI did not reveal the bond numbers, the top court gave a notice to the bank today. It also directed the return of electoral bonds data submitted by the ECI in a sealed cover to the poll body once the data os scanned and digitised. The return of the data to the ECI has to be done by Saturday (March 16) evening and it has to be uploaded by Sunday evening, the top court directed today. The ECI had moved the top court seeking copies of the sealed cover documents (electoral bonds) submitted during the court proceedings to be uploaded on its website.On March 14, the ECI put out the entire list of entities that have purchased electoral bonds for making political donations on its portal. The names include steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal, Sunil Bharti Mittal’s Airtel, Anil Agarwal’s Vedanta, ITC, Mahindra and Mahindra, a lesser-known Future Gaming and Hotel Services, and Megha Engineering. But possibly the biggest donor, according to the list released is a little known lottery company called Future Gaming and Hotel Services.While it is already known that the ruling BJP received the highest amount of donation of over Rs 6,000 crore followed by the Congress party, the data dump only disclosed the amount donated by each entity or individual. It does not say who donated to which party.
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