The Aryavarth Express
Agency (New Delhi): The SBI fuss over matching donor with donee, which the bank unsuccessfully tried to use with the Supreme Court to prevent disclosure of the details of buyers of the electoral bonds, was clearly a part of its dilatory tactics meant to shield the Bharatiya Janata Party from acute embarrassment.
The bank escaped by the skin of its teeth from being hauled up for contempt of court if it had refused to comply with the top court’s order to provide the details to the Election Commission by the original deadline of March 6. Only an ultimatum from the apex court to hand over all the available information to the Election Commission within 24 hours could force the SBI to do what it was told to.
Facing heat from the court, the bank has since handed over the details to the Election Commission. This, after the court declared that there was no need to do the “matching” prior to handover. Most curiously, after taking umbrage at the two datasets needed for each donation stored in two silos, the bank has now provided the information in digital format, which made the processing at the bank’s end a lot easier.
Was the SBI trying to complicate and confuse?
The breakup of electoral bond contributions to various parties has already been published, revealing that the BJP received a lion’s share. While this information lacks granularity, the disclosure of donors’ identities would leave a trail to the true origins of these funds. If the BJP’s coffers are primarily filled by a select few, it raises questions about undue influence and potential quid pro quo arrangements.
Suppose we unravel the donors’ details? In that case, we will be able to analyze the proportion of contributions from different sources. If a significant chunk comes from corporate entities, it could signal vested interests. Conversely, if individual citizens constitute the majority, it might indicate genuine grassroots support.
The proportionality analysis becomes crucial in understanding the dynamics of political financing. This assumes much significance in the context of the general perception that there has been quid pro quo arrangement between the Modi government and its favoured corporates.
It may be a highly rewarding exercise to revisit the 2021 judgment of the then Chief Justice of India, S A Bobde, which while refusing to stay the electoral bond scheme, had commented that the electoral bonds scheme was not so opaque as the public could engage in a “match the following” exercise to find who was donating to whom.
That was simple logic. But by creating so much noise about datasets, matching has been presented as something that requires supercomputing capabilities. “It is a complex data set collected in two “silos”—one with details of the purchaser and one with the details of the redeemer of the bonds,” SBI counsel Harish Salve was at great pains to explain.
Another argument with a hole was that safeguards were introduced to prevent ‘unauthorised’ leaks. Where is the question of leak when the ultimate objective is transparency; if at all there is scope for aberration, it will be an attempt to hold back, rather than leak.
SBI’s lack of sincerity was once again on display when Salve cited provisions of the impugned scheme to stonewall more disclosures. The pertinent question to ask as a counter was how the bank could take cover behind a provision under the scheme when the scheme itself had been struck down as violative of the Constitution? But all this could not have passed muster when the game-plan was to create confusion.
While it will be left to the acuity of the Indian people to draw their own conclusions from the details of donors and beneficiaries, no help will be on the way from the Election Commission, which itself is under a cloud, in bringing out the truth. With regard to SBI’s specious claim that matching the datasets is a Herculean task, by its own account there are a total of 22,217 bonds, implying 44,434 data sets in two silos to comb through. By any stretch of imagination, the two figures do not sound intimidating, especially in an era when Artificial Intelligence and super-computing are capable of breaking down even the most complex task to a few simple steps. (IPA Service)
By K Raveendran