NEW DELHI: A Constitution Bench headed by Justice S Abdul Nazeer on Wednesday floated the idea of a new law to deal with demonetisation in future when Attorney General R Venkataramani and Solicitor General Tushar Mehta said five judges are not required to deal with the demonetisation done in December 2016 which has now become an academic issue.Justice Nazeer also asked the two representing the Centre whether it is not necessary to examine the steps taken to demonetise the old currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 and can it be effected under the RBI Act or a separate law is needed.
When he remarked that he finds nothing left in the matter, Justice B R Gavai wondered as to why hold the hearing if nothing is left. On behalf of the petitioners, senior advocate Pranav Bhushan insisted that several issues are not yet settled like the constitutionality of all the subsequent notifications, inconvenience caused to the public, and violation of equality and freedom of expression.
The 5-judge Bench, however, decided to take up the hearing. Besides Justices Nazeer and Gavai, others judges on the Constitution Bench are Justices S Bopanna, V Ramasubramanyam nd B V Nagarathna.
Justice Nazeer said the Court is aware of the “Lakshman Rekha” on no judicial review of the government policy decisions, but it will have to examine the 2016 demonetisation decision to decide whether the issue has become a mere “academic” exercise.
The Bench said when an issue arises before a Constitution Bench, it is its duty to answer.
The Attorney General submitted that the Act on demonetisation has not been challenged in a proper perspective and as such the issue essentially remains academic and waste of time of the top court which already has a huge backlog of other cases to decide.
The Bench asked the Centre and the RBI to file a comprehensive affidavit on the demonetisation decision whose counsel sought time and listed the matter for hearing on November 9.
It said the main legal issue will be addressed first and then all the individual issues.
Its 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 they can invoke these powers again if it goes unchallenged. He said the demonetisation in 1978 was by a separate law. He insisted that it is not an academic but a live issue to ascertain whether the demonetisation of this kind requires a separate law when 86.4% of the legal tender was made illegal.
He further noted that Section 26 of the RBI Act is to demonetise any particualr series of the banknotes of any denomination and not all series of the banknotes as a separate law is required to do away all series of a denomination.
Chidambaram also mentioned about the hardships faced by people to the decision as many lost livelihood and jobs.
One of the petitions before the Court is by Vivek Narayan Sharma, challenging the notification dated November 8, 2016.
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