NEW DELHI: The Election Commission on Sunday made public fresh data on electoral bonds, which it had submitted in sealed covers to the Supreme Court and was later asked to put it in public domain.
These details are believed to be pertaining to the period before April 12, 2019. Electoral bond details after this date was made public by the poll panel last week.
“Data so received from political parties was deposited in the Supreme Court without opening sealed covers. In pursuance of the Supreme Court's order dated March 15, 2024, the Registry of the Supreme Court has returned physical copies along with a digitized record of the same in a pen drive in sealed cover. The Election Commission of India has today uploaded the data received in the digitized form from the registry of the Supreme Court on electoral bonds on its website,” the ECI said in a statement.
On Thursday, the ECI had moved an application before the top court to retrieve the electoral bond documents it had submitted to the court in November last year.
The ECI told the court that it did not retain copies of the documents it submitted in the court in a sealed cover. The ECI expressed its inability to comply with the court order on Monday that directed the poll body to “forthwith” publish the details of the information which was supplied to the court in November 2023.
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In November 2023, the Constitution bench of the top court had directed ECI to provide the court with comprehensive information on donations received by political parties through Electoral Bonds till September 30, 2023. Following which, the ECI submitted details in two tranches, containing 309 and 214 sealed envelopes, respectively.
The ECI application moved on Thursday said that to maintain the confidentiality of the aforesaid data, the poll body forwarded the documents to the court in sealed covers without keeping any copies of the same.
Public disclosure by ECI of the data relating to electoral bonds as returned by the Supreme Court registry can be found HERE
