The Supreme Court on Wednesday decided to hear all petitions challenging the Government’s demonetisation decision on December 2 but kept open the right of the HCs to grant any relief till then.
The decision came as a setback to the Centre, which sought stay on all proceedings in over a dozen petitions pending in seven High Courts. On the Centre's application to transfer all cases to a single High Court, the bench headed by Chief Justice TS Thakur said that different issues related to demonetisation have been raised in the bunch of 12 petitions. Responding to Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi who requested for a stay, the bench also comprising of Justices DY Chandrachud and lN Rao said, “It is possible High Courts may have given relief in some cases. We won't stay the proceedings.”
The Court asked the Centre whether the situation on ground had improved as it was anxious about the inconvenience faced by public. Rohatgi informed the Court that a Committee has been constituted by Centre which is monitoring the situation on an hourly basis every day. “We feel that in next 20 days, situation will normalise,” A-G said.
There was a further query from the bench on the amount collected by the banks till date. A-G replied, “In last 10 days, we have received about `6 lakh crore. We are expecting to receive `10 lakh crore by the cutoff date, i.e. December 30 (last date for deposit of phased out currency notes of `500 and `1000).”
“Will you call it a success if you can get `10 lakh crore,” asked the bench, to which A-G said that the scheme was already a success having brought `6 lakh crore in just 10 days. He explained that the Government's purpose behind introducing this move was to remove the slush money lying idle in the market for the past 70 years. “The general rule in any economy is that the liquid cash component should be four per cent of GDP. Presently our 12 per cent GDP comprises cash. This results in more hoarding of cash. Our aim is to bring it down to eight per cent. In the past days, we have experienced a big surge in digital transfers,” Rohatgi said.
But the bench reminded the Centre about the problems faced by farmers and rural villagers. Rohatgi told the Court that the problem was not about currency crunch but logistics. “The problem lies in moving the cash from the mint to the RBI and from RBI to banks,” the top law officer said. The matter will be heard next on December 2.