Demonetisation is 'serious', people have the right to approach other courts: SC tells Centre

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday dubbed the long queues outside banks and post offices as a “serious issue” and expressed its reservation on the Centre’s plea seeking a direction that no other court in the country should entertain petitions challenging the 8 November notification demonetising Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 currency notes. “It is a serious issue which requires consideration,” a bench comprising Chief Justice TS Thakur and Justice AR Dave said, while asking the parties to be ready with data and other issues in writing. “Some measures are required. See the kind of problems people are facing. People have to go to the high court. If we shut them from going to the high court, how can we know the magnitude of the problem. People going to different courts indicates the magnitude of the problem,” the bench said. It made the remarks as Attorney General (AG) Mukul Rohatgi submitted that any matter relating to challenge to the demonetisation issue be heard by the apex court only. However, the bench said, “People are affected. People are frantic. People have the right to approach the courts,” noting that there are difficulties and “can you (the Centre) dispute”. The AG said there is no dispute, but the queues are getting shorter and even suggested that the CJI can go out during lunch and himself look at the queue. “Kindly go in the lunch time,” the AG told the bench and took objection to senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for a private party, for allegedly exaggerating the situation. “It’s a political attempt in the court. I have seen your (Sibal’s) press conference also. You are not appearing for a political party, but for an advocate. You are turning the apex court into a political platform,” Rohatgi said. At the outset, the bench questioned the relief measures undertaken by the Centre by saying, “Last time you said there will be relief for people in the coming days but you have squeezed the exchange limit to Rs 2,000 only.” “What is the difficulty? " the bench asked Rohatgi. The AG explained the situation by stating that after printing, the currency has to be moved to thousands of centres across the country and ATMs have to be re-calibrated. “There is no shortage of funds,” he said. To questions from the bench, the AG said Rs 100 notes are in circulation and the ATMs needed to be re-calibrated to issue new currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 2,000. [caption id=“attachment_3112390” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. PTI[/caption] He also elaborated on the steps taken by the government to meet the situation by stating that besides reducing the exchange limit, farmers have been allowed to withdraw Rs 50,000 and people having weddings at home can withdraw Rs 2.5 lakh. “At a petrol pump, which has card swipe machine of SBI, people can go and withdraw money upto Rs 2,000. We have been monitoring the situation day-by-day,” Rohatgi said and added that the idea was to push the new notes of Rs 2,000 as one note of Rs 2,000 is equal to 20 notes of Rs 100. At this point, Sibal interrupted and said the problem is of printing as they need to print Rs 23 lakh crore, but they do not have the capacity to do that. “Already they have frozen Rs 14,000 crore and it is not clear under which law they have done so,” he said, contending that it is a serious situation where people cannot withdraw their own taxed money. “They are trustees, how can they not let us withdraw our legitimate money,” he said, adding that “the situation has turned from bad to worse”. Sibal said that the government was not concerned about the people living in remote areas of the north-east, Himachal Pradesh and Naxal-hit district of Bastar where people have to walk for 20 kms to reach an ATM. While the Congress leader was making the submission pointing out the deficiencies and the steps taken by the Centre, the AG said, “We need not give any explanation as right now it is the interim application that has to be heard.” Realising that the bench has reservation in entertaining the Centre’s application, Rohatgi said, “We will file a transfer petition”. The matter will be heard again on 25 November. The Centre had moved the apex court seeking a stay on the proceedings before various high courts and other courts except the apex court against demonetisation issue, saying otherwise it will create a lot of confusion. Rohatgi, on 11 November, had told the court that the Centre had already sent the fresh draft of the Memorandum of Procedure (MoP) for consideration of the collegium on 3 August, this year, but so far no response has been received by the government. The apex court had earlier rapped the government for delay in appointments to higher judiciary despite recommendations made by the collegium in this regard and had said the entire institution cannot be brought to a grinding halt. Maintaining that the appointment process “cannot be stalled” due to non-finalisation of the MoP, the court had criticised the tardy progress in processing files pertaining to judges’ appointment and even warned that it may summon the Secretaries of the PMO and the Ministry of Law and Justice to ascertain the factual position. The Attorney General had said that non-finalisation of the MoP was one of the issues and had assured the bench that more progress will be seen in the near future on the appointment of judges. The Centre had on 14 September told the apex court that there was “no blame game” or “logjam” in appointments and transfer of judges for higher judiciary but blamed the high courts for “pretty much delaying” the starting of the process. Earlier, the apex court had said it would not tolerate “logjam in judges’ appointment” and would intervene to “fasten accountability as the justice delivery system is collapsing”. The bench had said that if the government had reservations about any name, it could always come back to the collegium.