Printing of 10k electoral bonds worth Rs 1 cr each stopped after SC ruling

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Three days earlier than the Supreme Court docket declared electoral bonds as unconstitutional, the Finance Ministry gave a inexperienced gentle for the printing of 10,000 electoral bonds valued at Rs 1 crore every by the Safety Printing and Minting Company of India (SPMCIL), based on a report by The Indian Categorical.

The Finance Ministry’s directive to halt printing was issued on February 28, a fortnight after the Supreme Court docket’s ruling, compelling the State Financial institution of India (SBI) to cease the method instantly.

The revelation of this sequence of occasions comes from file notations and e-mail exchanges between the Finance Ministry and SBI, accessed by the newspaper by the Proper to Data (RTI) Act. These data disclose that SPMCIL had already produced and dispatched 8,350 bonds to SBI.

The instruction to droop printing was conveyed in a path mail titled ‘Maintain on Printing of Electoral Bonds — Electoral Bond Scheme 2018’ dated February 28, from SBI to SPMCIL.

The Assistant Basic Supervisor of SBI’s Transaction Banking Division acknowledged the receipt of 4 packing containers of Safety types of Electoral Bonds containing a complete of 8,350 bonds in an e-mail dated February 23, 2024. It acknowledged, “As per the judgment given by the Honourable Supreme Court docket, we request you to halt the printing of the remaining 1,650 Electoral Bonds for which approval had been granted through Funds Division Letter dated 12.01.2024.”

A word dated February 27 recorded that the order was for printing 400 booklets and 10,000 Electoral Bonds, with the approval of the ‘Authorities of India’ granted on February 12.

On the seame day, the Finance Ministry’s Funds part dispatched one other e-mail to SBI and different related entities within the Ministry, requesting them to tell the SPMCIL to halt the printing of the remaining 1,650 Electoral Bonds.

The electoral bond scheme was launched to permit particular person and home corporations to anonymously donate bonds to political events in multiples of Rs 1,000, Rs 10,000, Rs 1 lakh, Rs 10 lakh, and Rs 1 crore. The bonds wanted to be redeemed inside 15 days by a political social gathering.

In whole, 22,217 electoral bonds have been redeemed for the reason that initiation of the scheme. Among the many political events, the Bharatiya Janata Celebration (BJP) redeemed Rs 8,451 crore; the Congress Rs 1,950 crore; Trinamool Congress Rs 1,707.81 crore, and the Bahujan Samaj Celebration (BRS) Rs 1,407.30 crore.

First Printed: Mar 30 2024 | 1:20 PM IST

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