The Supreme Court’s Constitution Bench on Wednesday asked the Centre and Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to file a comprehensive affidavit on the decision to demonetize currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 in 2016.
A five-judge bench of Justices Abdul Nazeer, BR Gavai, AS Bopanna, V Ramasubramanian, and BV Nagarathna issued notice on all the intervening applications and fresh petitions challenging demonetization.
The court has listed the matter for November 9. The court said that it would address the main legal issue and then take up all these individual issues. The court’s direction came after Senior Advocate P Chidambaram stressed that the court must examine the powers under Sections 24 and 26 of the RBI Act, 1934, as tomorrow, if this goes unchallenged, they can invoke these powers again.
Senior Advocate P Chidambaram apprised the court that demonetisation in 1978 was done through a separate law. He also said that whether demonetisation of this kind requires a separate law, is not academic as this is a live issue.
The Senior Advocate also mentioned the hardships faced by people due to the decision, as many people lost livelihoods.
Various petitions were filed arising from the decision of the Government of India to demonetize the old notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1000. One of the petitions was filed by Vivek Narayan Sharma. The petition has challenged the notification dated November 8, 2016.