New Delhi: Supreme Court today said that it will hear petitions against the 2016 demonetisation of high-value currency notes from November 9. After noting that there is a line- Lakshman Rekha as to how far the courts can go on challenging the government policy decisions, it wants the central government to keep the files ready pertaining to the decision to ban high-value currency notes.
Over 80 per cent of all notes then in circulation were banned in a sudden announcement, a late-evening address by Prime Minister Narendra Modi as an ‘anti-corruption measure”. The court wants the Centre and the Reserve Bank of India to file responses.
It was within days of ban that several people went to court and questioned the constitutional validity of rendering notes worthless unless exchanged with deadline. Therefore, one of the major questions the court now has to answer is whether the hearings now be merely academic exercise after six years of occurrence of the events.
It’s being heard after 6 years of demonetization as Constitutional Benches were finally formed by the previous Chief Justice NV Ramana, before he left office about two months ago. Senior Advocate, P Chidambaram, a former Finance Minister has argued that this kind of demonetization required a separate act of Parliament, similar to what was done in 1978.