New Delhi, India

India's Supreme Court scrapped the donations to political parties via electoral bonds on February 15, seven years after the scheme was first implemented in 2017 and just two months ahead of the Lok Sabha elections 2024. 

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A report by local media outlet citing documents obtained under the Right to Information Act (RTI) has now disclosed that the Indian Finance Ministry approved the printing of Rs 10,000 crore ($1.1bn) worth of electoral bonds by the Security Printing and Minting Corporation of India (SPMCIL) on February 12, just three days before the landmark ruling by the apex court discontinued the bond scheme. 

It was a total of 10,000 bonds approved with a value of each of them being Rs 1 crore ($119.9k) each.  

Notably, the electoral bond system allowed individuals and corporations to donate money to political parties anonymously.

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According to documents seen by Indian Express, the Finance Ministry had instructed the State Bank of India (SBI) to stop the printing process on February 28. It was nearly two weeks after the Supreme Court's ruling that the government asked for putting a halt on the printing of electoral bonds worth nearly more than a billion dollars.   

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This revelation comes days after SBI disclosed the bond numbers and other relevant information to Election Commission of India (ECI) which further made it public on its website.   

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Moreover, the exclusive report by the media outlet said that the correspondence between the Finance Ministry and SBI revealed that 8,350 bonds had already been printed and dispatched to SBI by SPMCIL.

SBI asked to instruct SPMCIL on halt of printing 

The government requested SBI to instruct SPMCIL to stop the printing.

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Indian Finance Ministry's budget section wrote to SBI, “State Bank of India is requested to kindly communicate immediately to SPMCIL to put a hold on the printing of the remaining 1,650 Electoral Bonds for which approval had been given.”

Following that, there was an email sent from SBI to SPMCIL doing the same. The trail-mail was titled as "Hold on Printing of Electoral Bonds — Electoral Bond Scheme 2018".

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The SBI’s Assistant General Manager of its Transaction Banking Department, in the email had reportedly written, “We have acknowledged the receipt of 4 boxes of Security forms of Electoral Bonds containing total 8350 Bonds email dated 23.02.2024…. As in the light of judgment given by the Honourable Supreme Court we request you to put a hold on the printing of the remaining 1,650 Electoral Bonds for which approval had been given via Budget Division Letter dated 12.01.2024.”

(With inputs from agencies)