SBI recording unique number of electoral bonds 'completely unlawful': Former finance secretary Subhash Garg

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Indian Express, Garg said the bank was not supposed to record the unique alpha-numeric numbers of the electoral bonds. "Doing so, it [SBI] had violated the anonymity promised to donors under the Electoral Bond Scheme, 2018," Garg was quoted as saying on Saturday. The bonds numbers can help match the purchasers of the bonds with the political parties that encashed them.

He said by recording the alphanumeric number of the electoral bonds, the SBI "had hit at the basic feature of the scheme that was brought in by the government in 2018 to enable anonymous political donations." Garg also alleged that the first affidavit filed by the SBI in connection with the electoral bonds case was "ostensibly false". He cited the SBI as saying in its first affidavit that the information of donors and parties was kept in physical form in two silos and that it would take three months to match. ALSO READ: Electoral bonds news: From Reliance-linked firms to Vedanta, here's a list of BJP's top donors "But subsequent events showed that they recorded the information in a digital form.

Their first affidavit appears to be motivated by the desire to push the disclosure of the data beyond the Lok Sabha elections. Why did they file the ostensibly false affidavit," asked Garg. Garg's statement came days after the Election Commission published the complete electoral bond data submitted by the SBI on the orders of the Supreme Court.