Electoral bond case: SBI refuses to share details of legal fees paid to Senior Advocate Harish Salve

The State Bank of India (SBI) has denied to share information about the legal fees paid to senior advocate Harish Salve, who represented the bank in the electoral bonds case before the Supreme Court.

This was in reply to an RTI query filed by activist Ajay Bose. Bose contested that fees paid to the advocate was taxpayers' money and questioned why SBI was hiding this information.

In its reply, the bank said the details sought are exempted from being made public under the RTI Act.

“The information sought by you is third party personal information held by the Bank in fiduciary capacity, disclosure of which is exempted under Section 8(1) (e) & (j) and the same is also of commercial confidence in nature, hence denied as it is exempted under section 8 (1) (d) of the RTI Act,” it said.

Sections 8 (1) (d) and Section 8(1) (e) & (j) of the RTI Act allow details to be provided if the competent authority is satisfied that the larger public interest warrants the disclosure of such information.

Earlier, the SBI had refused to disclose the details of electoral bonds, claiming that it is personal information held in a fiduciary capacity. The public sector bank cited the RTI Act while refusing to disclose the information of the now-scrapped scheme.

This RTI was filed by activist Commodore Lokesh Batra (retired). He approached the SBI on March 13 seeking the complete data of the electoral bonds in the digital form, as provided to the EC after the Supreme Court's order.

While the information is already available to the public on the Election Commission website, the bank refused to provide the details of the electoral bonds scheme citing two exemption clauses given under the Right to Information (RTI) Act -- section 8(1)(e) that is related to records held in a fiduciary capacity and section 8(1)(j) that allows withholding personal information.

The SBI said: “Information sought by you is containing details of purchasers and political parties and hence, cannot be disclosed as it is held in fiduciary capacity disclosure of which is exempted under sections 8(1)(e) and (j) of the RTI Act.”

InN response, Batra said it is “bizarre” that SBI refused to disclose the information already available in a public forum.

He also sought the details of the legal fees for senior advocate Harish Salve, who represented the State Bank of India in the Supreme Court against the disclosure of the electoral bonds data. On the question of Salve's fee, he said the bank has denied information that involves taxpayers' money.