The majority verdict of the Supreme Court on Monday while upholding the Government’s decision of demonetisation said the court must defer to legislative judgment in matters related to social and economic policies and must not interfere unless the exercise of Executive power appears to be palpably arbitrary.
“The court does not have necessary competence and expertise to adjudicate upon such economic issues. It is also not possible for the court to assess or evaluate what would be the impact of a particular action and it is best left to the wisdom of the experts.
“In such matters, it will not be possible for the court to assess or evaluate what would be the impact of the impugned action of demonetisation. The court does not possess the expertise to do so,” it said.
Mere errors of judgment by the Government seen in retrospect are not subject to judicial review, it added.
On the issue of hardship suffered by citizens during demonetisation, the apex court said if the impugned notification had a nexus with the objectives to be achieved, then, merely because some citizens suffered hardship, it would not be a ground to hold the impugned notification to be bad in law.
“The decision-making process is also sought to be attacked on the ground that the decision was taken in a hasty manner. We find that the ‘hasty’ argument would be destructive of the very purpose of demonetisation.
“Such measures undisputedly are required to be taken with utmost confidentiality and speed. If the news of such a measure is leaked out, it is difficult to imagine how disastrous the consequences would be... It can thus be seen that confidentiality and secrecy in such sort of measures is of paramount importance,” the Bench said.
Contending that it is not the function of the court to sit in judgment over matters of economic policy, the top court said such issues must necessarily be left to the Government of the day to decide and the courts can certainly not be expected to decide them without even the aid of experts.
“In the present case also, the delegation is to the Central Government, i.e. the highest Executive body of the country. We have a Parliamentary system in which the Government is responsible to the Parliament.
“In case the Executive does not act reasonably while exercising its power of delegated legislation, it is responsible to Parliament who are elected representatives of the citizens for whom there exists a democratic method of bringing to book the elected representatives who act unreasonably in such matters,” the Bench said.