Maintaining that the Supreme Court verdict steered clear of whether the objectives of the demonetisation exercise were achieved at all, the Congress and the Left parties on Monday revived their attack on the Centre over its imposition and sought an apology from Prime Minister Narendra Modi “for single handedly destroying the Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises and the informal sector”.
While the Congress said the Supreme Court verdict is "deeply disappointing" as the top court has failed to hold the BJP-led Union government accountable for its "monumental recklessness”, the Left parties noted that the dissenting opinion of one of the judges of the Supreme Court has maintained that the RBI must recommend to the government to initiate demonetization and demanded a white paper on the exercise.
Former finance minister P Chidambaram said the majority verdict by the Supreme Court has steered clear of the question whether the objectives of the demonetisation exercise were achieved at all.
The Congress, which has been raising the issue of demonetization during its ongoing Bharat jodo Yatra stated the dissenting verdict is a "slap on the wrist" of the government as it has pointed out the "illegality and irregularities" in the decision.
"Once the Hon'ble Supreme Court has declared the law, we are obliged to accept it. However, it is necessary to point out that the majority has not upheld the wisdom of the decision; nor has the majority concluded that the stated objectives were achieved.
In fact, the majority has steered clear of the question whether the objectives were achieved at all. We are happy that the minority judgement has pointed out the illegality and the irregularities in the demonetisation. It may be only a slap on the wrist of the government, but a welcome slap on the wrist," Chidambaram said in a tweet message after the verdict. "It may be only a slap on the wrist of the government, but a welcome slap on the wrist," he said in a series of tweets. The dissenting judgement will rank among the famous dissents recorded in the history of the Supreme Court, Chidambaram remarked.
The Congress which has been regularly attacking the Modi government on the economy policy particularly the fall of economy due to demonetization argued it was "misleading and wrong" to say the Supreme Court has upheld demonetisation, rather the majority court verdict deals with the limited issue of the process of decision-making not with its outcomes,
"The Supreme Court verdict is on the process of demonetisation and not on its outcomes. If anybody has to apologise, it has to be the Prime Minister, because the 'Tughlaki' decision taken by him on November 8, 2016 destroyed lakhs of MSMEs, the informal sector, and livelihood of lakhs of people, and we continue to face the negative impact it had on our economy," said Congress chief spokesman Jairam Ramesh at the AICC press briefing on the subject.
Quoting the RBI, the Left parties further said that the currency with public has gone up from Rs 17.7 lakh crore on the eve of demonetisation to Rs 30.88 lakh crore now, an increase of 71.84 per cent.
The CPI claimed that the Supreme court judgment is a split judgment which “does not take into consideration false claims made by the government during demonetization and it only touches upon the legal aspect of the decision-making. It does not touch upon the adverse impact of demonetisation on the people.”
"This majority verdict while upholding the government's legal right to take such a decision says nothing about the impact of such a decision. Demonetisation resulted in the destruction of India's informal economy that employs crores of people. It paralyzed the small-scale industrial sector, the MSMEs, destroying crores of livelihoods. Reports noted that in one month since the decision in 2016, 82 people lost their lives," the CPIM said in a statement.
Lok Sabha MP and AIMIM Asauddin Owaisi dared the Modi government to celebrate the demonetization day now.