Among the many companies who donated funds through electoral bonds, 16 financial services firms accounted for at least Rs 180 crore between 2019 and 2023, according to the electoral bonds list that was made public on Thursday.
This comes after the Supreme Court rejected a plea on Monday by State Bank of India to extend the March 6 deadline to release the data. Last month, the apex court had struck down the electoral bond scheme in a unanimous ruling and called it unconstitutional.
The Election Commission of India published the list prepared by SBI on its website. Under this scheme, the total amount donated from April 1, 2019, to Feb. 15, 2024, was Rs 12,156 crore.
Piramal Group
The 40-year-old conglomerate was the largest donor among financial services companies at Rs 85 crore, with bonds bought in April 2019 and April 2022, according to the list.
Most of the bonds were purchased by group unit PHL Fininvest Pvt. in April 2019, worth Rs 40 crore.
Two years later, the parent company decided to amalgamate the non-banking finance company arm with Piramal Enterprises Ltd. to create a large listed NBFC. The merged housing finance company, post the DHFL acquisition, remained a wholly owned subsidiary of Piramal Enterprises.
Piramal Enterprises also bought 25 bonds worth Rs 1 crore each in April 2019, and then 10 bonds of the same denomination in April 2022. The group's housing finance subsidiary, Piramal Capital & Housing Finance Ltd., also purchased electoral bonds worth Rs 10 crore in April 2019.
Other Majors In List
Infina Finance Pvt., a non-bank lender jointly owned by Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd. and the Kotak family, purchased a total of 60 electoral bonds worth Rs 1 crore each between October 2019 and April 2021, according to the list.
Kotak Mahindra Bank's subsidiaries, namely Kotak Mahindra Capital Co., Komaf Financial Services Pvt., and Kotak Trustee Co., hold 50% of shareholding in the non-deposit taking NBFC.
Registered in 2008, the company is in the business of capital market financing and proprietary trading, and investments. Its net worth stands at Rs 2,307 crore, and turnover at Rs 227 crore.
Further, Bajaj Finance Ltd., the largest consumer financier with Rs 3.1 lakh crore of assets under management as of Dec. 31, also bought electoral bonds worth Rs 20 crore in April 2019.
In the recent months, the company has been under the Reserve Bank of India's scanner over regulatory violations.
In November, the central bank barred Bajaj Finance from sanctioning loans under its digital lending products eCOM and Insta EMI Card, on grounds of non-adherence to the regulator's guidelines. The restrictions were particularly about non-issuance of key fact statements to the borrowers under these two lending products, the RBI had said.
In its investor presentation in December, the lender said that the company has "conducted a comprehensive review of guidelines on digital lending and key fact statements and is implementing requisite corrective actions."
Another major non-bank lender was Edelweiss Group, which purchased electoral bonds worth Rs 4 crore in May 2019.
In 2021, Edelweiss Group faced trouble after the Ministry of Corporate Affairs began an investigation over allegations of diverting Rs 1,800 crore from its asset reconstruction arm along with its partner Canadian pension fund Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec.
Muthoot Finance, too, donated Rs 3 crore through electoral bonds in April 2019, through 30 bonds worth Rs 10 lakh each.
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