{"id":220841,"date":"2023-01-03T20:43:02","date_gmt":"2023-01-03T15:13:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=220841"},"modified":"2023-01-03T20:43:02","modified_gmt":"2023-01-03T15:13:02","slug":"two-views-on-demonetisation-what-the-supreme-courts-demonetisation-verdict-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/two-views-on-demonetisation-what-the-supreme-courts-demonetisation-verdict-says\/","title":{"rendered":"Two views on demonetisation: What the Supreme Court\u2019s demonetisation verdict says"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><b>Source: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The post is based on the article <\/span><b>\u201c<\/b><b>Two views on demonetisation: What the Supreme Court\u2019s demonetisation verdict says<\/b><b>\u201d <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">published in<\/span><b> Indian Express <\/b>on<b> 3rd January 2023<\/b><\/p>\n<h5><b>What is the News?<\/b><\/h5>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Supreme Court has upheld the government\u2019s 2016 decision to demonetise currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 by a 4:1 majority.<\/span><\/p>\n<h5><b>What is Demonetization?<\/b><\/h5>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/demonetisation-a-resounding-success\/\"><b>Click Here to read<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n<h5><b>What was the majority view on Demonetization?<\/b><\/h5>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The majority held that the demonetization was valid on the following grounds:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>The Centre has the power, under the RBI Act to demonetise all series of bank notes: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The petitioners challenging demonetisation had contended that the Union Government&#8217;s powers to demonetise bank notes under Section 26(2) of the Reserve Bank Of India Act, 1934, are restricted only for \u2018one\u2019 or \u2018some\u2019 series of bank notes and not for \u2018all\u2019 series of bank notes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2013 However, the<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> majority judgment held that the power available to the central government under Section 26(2) of the RBI Act can be exercised for all series of bank notes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2013 The court said that this section cannot be interpreted to give the government \u201crestricted power\u201d to demonetise notes as it would lead to a situation where the authorities could demonetise some counterfeit notes of a specific denomination but not all notes. Such a scenario \u201cwill result in nothing else but absurdity.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Demonetisation notification does not suffer from any flaws in the decision-making process: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There was consultation between the Centre and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for six months indicating a reasonable nexus between the measures undertaken and the object sought to be achieved and, therefore, the demonetisation passed the test of <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/what-is-doctrine-of-proportionality\/#:~:text=Proportionality%20means%20that%20the%20administrative,for%20obtaining%20the%20desired%20result.\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">doctrine of \u201cproportionality\u201d.<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>The time provided for the exchange of demonetised notes was reasonable: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The court referred to the judgment of a Constitution Bench in<strong> Jayantilal Ratanchand Shah Vs RBI (1996)<\/strong> which upheld the validity of 1978\u2019s Demonetisation Act.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The 1996 judgment notes that if the time for such exchange was not limited, the high denomination bank notes could be circulated and transferred from one person to another and any such transferee could walk into the Bank on any day thereafter and demand the exchange of his notes.<\/span><\/p>\n<h5><b>What was the minority view on Demonetization?<\/b><\/h5>\n<p><b> <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The dissenting judge held that the government\u2019s demonetisation exercise was well-intentioned and thought-through. But was unlawful on the following grounds:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>No independent application of mind by RBI: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The dissenting judge held that <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">the central bank did not apply its mind independently while recommending the cancellation of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes as proposed by the Centre.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Executive order is not enough for such a step: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The demonetisation of all series of notes at the instance of the central government is a far more serious issue than the demonetisation of a particular series by the bank. So, it has to be done through legislation rather than through executive notification.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Interpretation of Section 26(2) of the RBI Act: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Section 26(2) only contemplates the demonetisation of banknotes at the instance of the Central Board of the RBI. However, since in this case the proposal was not initiated by the RBI, the demonetisation exercise could have been undertaken by the central government only through an ordinance or a parliamentary law.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2013 The dissenting judge also said that the <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">word \u2018any\u2019 in sub-section (2) of Section 26 cannot be read to mean \u2018all series of bank notes\u2019 as this would vest with the Central Board of the Bank unguided and unlimited powers.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Source: The post is based on the article \u201cTwo views on demonetisation: What the Supreme Court\u2019s demonetisation verdict says\u201d published in Indian Express on 3rd January 2023 What is the News? The Supreme Court has upheld the government\u2019s 2016 decision to demonetise currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 by a 4:1 majority. What&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/two-views-on-demonetisation-what-the-supreme-courts-demonetisation-verdict-says\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Two views on demonetisation: What the Supreme Court\u2019s demonetisation verdict says<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10317,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1566,3127,9],"tags":[10500],"class_list":["post-220841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-factly-articles","category-economy","category-public","tag-indian-express","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10317"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220841"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220841\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}