The Supreme Court Friday declined to interfere at this juncture with the central government’s policy on demonetisation and various other notifications issued by the Reserve Bank of India on the subject. The court referred the larger issue of examining the constitutional validity of the decision to a five-judge bench.
A three-judge bench led by Chief Justice of India T S Thakur also restrained all other high courts in the country to hear matters pertaining to demonetisation and transferred all the cases to the apex court “to avoid multiplicity of hearing and conflicting decisions on the same subject matter.”
The bench, also comprising Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud, refused to relax the government’s decision to do away with the use of now-defunct Rs 500, Rs 1,000 currency notes for public utilities, in government hospitals and for railway tickets. A bunch of petitions had sought that the relaxation to use the old currency notes should be extended for a further period in government hospitals and for booking train tickets.
