Demonetization was Valid, Supreme Court Constitution Bench Dismisses All Petitions

A 5-Judge constitution bench of SC rejects all 58 petitions challenging Union government’s 2016 decision to demonetize Rs 500 and Rs 1000 currency notes saying the decision, being Executive’s Economic Policy, cannot be reversed. The decision was passed by 4:1 of the bench. Justice making process is not flawed, it said.

Justive S Abdul Nazeer, Justice BR Gavai, Justice V Ramasubramanian and Justice AS Bopanna were delivered in fevor of Demonetization while Justice VB Nagarathna Dessents from them.

SC said the 52 day window provided for exchange of demonetized currency notes with legal tenders is not unreasonable and cannot be extended now. It said in the 1978 demonetization, the window for exchange of demonetized bank notes was 3 days, which was extended by another 5 days.

Supreme Court ruled that the demonetization decision does not suffer from any legal or constitutional flaws, it said that the petitions can be placed before an appropriate bench by the CJI for deciding issues linked to the main issue relating to validity of demonetization process.