SBI asks for extension:  State Bank of India (SBI) has requested the Supreme Court to extend time till June 30 for letting it to furnish electoral bond information. The SBI on Monday filed an application in the Supreme Court seeking an extension of time till June 30, 2024, to furnish information regarding Electoral Bonds to the Election Commission of India (ECI).

The judgment delivered by a Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court on February 15 has said that the SBI is required to furnish the information to ECI by March 6. 

In the application filed before the apex court, State Bank of India contended that retrieval of information from "each silo" and the procedure of matching the information of one silo to that of the other would be a time-consuming exercise.  The plea submitted that due to strict measures undertaken to ensure that the identity of the donors was kept anonymous, "decoding' the electoral bonds and matching donors to the donations made would be a complex process, according to media reports. 

In the extension application, the SBI stated that between the period April 12, 2019 to February 15, 2024,  as many as 22,217 electoral bonds were issued for making donations to various parties. The redeemed bonds were deposited to the Mumbai Main Branch by the Authorised Branches at the end of each phase in sealed envelopes. The SBI stated that since two different information silos existed, it has to decode, compile and compare 44,434 information sets.

(With PTI inputs)