ECI Moves SC To Retrieve Sealed Documents Of Electoral Bonds Case

The Election Commission has released the electoral bonds data on its portal on March 14.

New Delhi: The Supreme Court is set to review an application submitted by the Election Commission on Friday, requesting alterations to the operative segment of its March 11 ruling in the electoral bonds case.

In its filing, the electoral body pointed out that the order specified that duplicates of the papers it provided to the apex court in sealed envelopes during the proceedings should be retained at the Election Commission's headquarters. The EC clarified that it had not retained any copies of the documents and urged for their return to ensure compliance with the court's directives.

A separate petition filed by NGO Association for Democratic Reforms challenging the exclusion of the Chief Justice of India from a panel for the selection of the chief election commissioner and election commissioners was also scheduled to come up for hearing on Friday.

However, the matter is not shown in Friday's list of business on the apex court website.

A bench headed by Justice Sanjiv Khanna on March 12 had told advocate Prashant Bhushan, representing the NGO, that the plea on the exclusion of CJI from the selection panel will be taken up for hearing on Friday.

In the electoral bonds case, the apex court had on March 11 directed the State Bank of India (SBI to disclose the details of the bonds to the EC by close of business hours on March 12.

In its fresh application, the poll panel has said the apex court had observed in its March 11 order that "copies of the statements which were filed by the ECI before this court would be maintained in the office of the ECI".

"It is most respectfully submitted herein that in compliance of the orders passed by this court and in order to maintain the confidentiality of the aforesaid information /data, the Election Commission of India forwarded the documents received by it to this court in sealed covers/boxes, without retaining any copies of the same," the application said.

"Thus, no copies of the documents/statements filed by the Election Commission of India before this court in the instant case were ever retained by it," it said.

In its application, the EC has urged the apex court that the portion of March 11 order may be rectified or modified and the documents, data or information submitted by it before the court in sealed covers may be returned to it to enable the poll panel to comply with the court's directions.