Electoral Bonds case: State Bank of India excuses are laughable - Thomas Franco

A day before its deadline to furnish details of Electoral Bonds (EBs) after they were struck down, the State Bank of India (SBI) told the Supreme Court on March 5 that it needs extra time till June 30, nearly four months in addition to the three weeks already granted to it, to compile the data. SBI told the SC that it had kept only physical copies of the details of donors, which it will now have to match with the details of EBs stored digitally. Since 22,217 EBs were issued since April 12, 2019 – the date of an earlier interim SC judgement starting from which the court has now sought details – the SBI has claimed that this would be a time-consuming process needing months. TNM’s Senior News Editor Shabbir Ahmed speaks to Thomas Franco, former general secretary of the All India Bank Officers' Confederation (AIBOC) to the SBI’s excuses.