
India'sSupreme Court said on Wednesday that itwill be examining the demonetisation decision taken by the Union government back in 2016. The five-judge bench headed by Justice SA Nazeer will be looking into the process followed by the government and willalso decide if it was just an "academic" exercise.
In 2016, the Narendra Modi-led government decided to strip the Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes of their status as legal tenders. The move was aimed at resisting the flow of black money inthe economy.
The Supreme Court asked the Centre and Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to file affidavits on the demonetisationdecision, saying it would look into whether the government had the authority to do so under Section 26 of the RBI Act.
At present, India follows the High Denomination Bank Notes (Demonetisation) Act passed in 1978 which allows the government to order “demonetisation of certain high denomination bank notes in order to check the illicit transfer of money harmful to the economy which such currency notes facilitate”.
During the discussion, Attorney General R Venkataramani said that the act needs to be discussed once again by the bench or else it will remain purely ‘academic’. The four other justices on the bench besides Justice Nazeer are - B R Gavai, A S Bopanna, V Ramasubramanian, and B V Nagarathna.
"In order to answer that issue, we will have to hear and give an answer whether it's academic, not academic, or beyond the scope of judicial review. The point in the case is the government policy and its wisdom which is one aspect of the matter. We always know where the Lakshman Rekha is, but the manner in which it was done has to be examined. We have to hear the counsel decide that."