Nearly six years after the government’s banknote demonetisation saw long queues, reported deaths and cash shortage, a Constitution Bench, charged with examining the validity of an Ordinance promulgated to legalise the exercise retrospectively and look into human problems which accompanied the implementation of withdrawal of ₹500 and ₹1,000 currency notes from legal tender, turned around on September 28 to ask if “anything survives at all” in the issue in 2022.
A three-judge Bench of the Supreme Court had referred the question of the legality of the demonetisation exercise and its implementation to a Constitution Bench on December 16, 2016, saying the issue was of public importance with far-reaching consequences for the common man.
“Does this survive at this stage? In those days, it was relevant. Does it survive now?” Justice S. Abdul Nazeer, who headed the five-judge Bench, asked as soon as the hearing in the case that commenced on Wednesday.
