Electoral bonds data: SBI Chairman Dinesh Kumar Khara tells top court all details in its possession submitted to ECI

Electoral bonds data latest news today: State Bank of India (SBI) said on Thursday that it had filed a compliance affidavit in the Supreme Court containing all the details on electoral bonds in its position to the Election Commission of India (ECI). However, the PSU lender said that details such as complete bank account numbers and KYC-related information about political parties were not made public, citing cyber security reasons. "It may compromise the security of the account (cyber security)," said SBI, the country's largest lender that issued the now-scrapped electoral bonds. 

Here are some of the key things to know about this story:

• "Similarly, KYC details of purchasers are also not being made public for security reasons, apart from the fact that such information is not fed/collated in the system. However, they are not necessary for identifying the political parties," read the affidavit filed in the top court by SBI Chairman Dinesh Kumar Khara. 
• SBI said it had revealed information such as the name of the purchaser, its denomination and specific number, the name of the party that encashed it, the last four digits of the bank account number of the political party, and the denomination and unique number of the bond encashed.
• "It is respectfully submitted that SBI has now disclosed all details and that no details (other than complete account numbers & KYC details) have been withheld from disclosure in terms of the directions contained in… the judgment dated February 15, 2024, read with order dated March 18, 2024 passed by this court," the affidavit said.
• The Supreme Court had told the SBI to stop being "selective" and to make "complete disclosure" of all details related to the electoral bonds scheme by March 21, demanding specific details including the unique bond numbers that would match the buyers with the recipient political parties. What are electoral bonds?
• In mid-February, a five-judge constitution bench in a landmark decision scrapped the seven-year-old election funding system, calling it "unconstitutional". Until then, the bonds were purchased by donors in fixed denominations from SBI, and then handed over to any political party, which could encash them using a bank account.
• The electoral bonds did not require the beneficiary political parties to disclose the name of the donor to anyone, even the ECI, the country's poll agency. 
• Some of India's biggest companies were among its top political funders over the last five years, according to official data released by the ECI on March 15. What is ECI and what does it do?
• Under the system, an individual or firm could buy electoral bonds from PSU lender State Bank of India (SBI) and donate them to a political party.

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With inputs from agencies