The Supreme Court on Friday refused to extend the December 15 deadline for the exempted use of the scrapped Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes and referred all questions related to demonetisation to a five-judge constitution bench, reported ANI. The apex court said it did not wish to interfere with the Centre’s decision as these were “matters of fiscal policies”.
While it also barred all high courts from hearing petitions on the currency ban, the bench asked the government to honour its commitment of allowing citizens to withdraw Rs 24,000 per week.
Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi said the government would allow the exchange of the Rs 8,000 crore collected by district cooperative banks between November 11 and November, reported dna. The Reserve Bank of India had ordered district cooperative banks to not exchange the now-invalid Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 bills or even deposit the defunct currency.
During the December 9 hearing of a batch of petitions and public interest litigations challenging the Centre’s move, the Supreme Court had framed nine questions for adjudication to decide whether demonetisation was an unconstitutional decision. In itsaffidavit submitted earlier this month, the government had told the top court that demonetisation was a step taken to unearth black money and reduce the ratio of cash transactions.
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