Supreme Court to decide on legality of Demonetisation

A three-member Supreme Court bench presided over by Chief Justice TS Thakur on Friday referred a batch of petitions challenging the constitutionality of Demonetisation to a five-member Constitution Bench. The bench accepted the Attorney General’s assurance that steps were being taken to address people’s distress due to shortage of cash and refused to pass any direction at this stage.

It however framed 10 questions for the Constitution Bench to decide. The Constitution Bench will consider, among other things:

1. Whether the November 8 notification is beyond the legal power or authority of the Reserve Bank of India Act’s section relating to the power to demonetise.
2. Whether the demonetisation falls foul of the Constitution’s Article 300A, which says that no person shall be deprived of his/her property without a provision in law.
3. Whether the decision violates Article 14 (equality before the law) and Article 19(1)(g) (freedom to practice profession and occupation) and
4. whether the limit and restriction on withdrawal of “legitimate and taxed money” by the banks is violative of various fundamental rights.
5. Whether Demonetisation can be done only with the approval of the Parliament.
6. Whether the demonetisation suffers from procedural lapses affecting the citizens' fundamental rights under Article 14 and 19.
7. It has to be examined whether the exercise carried under section 26 of the RBI Act suffered from excessive delegation of power to demonetise currency notes.
8. The bench also included the attorney general’s question on the scope of judicial review in fiscal/economic policy matters.
9. The apex court said that the larger bench would also go into the Attorney General’s question whether a political party can file a public interest litigation, as has been done by the Communist Party of India (Marxist).
10. Whether district cooperative banks have been discriminated against by denial of the permission to accept deposits and exchange demonetised currency notes.