MyVoice: Views of our readers 4th January 2023

SC upholding note ban legalizes "Unlawful, vitiated," decision

The Supreme Court upheld the decision taken by the Modi government on November 8, 2016 relating to demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 denomination notes with its 4-1 judgment on Monday. While giving notification under section 26(2) of the RBI Act, the government allowed 52 day period to exchange the banned notes. During which serpentine queues were common in front of nationalised banks across the country .About 200 people died due to prolonged wait before the banks. Nearly 15 crore people including petty traders,casual labourers and those who were working in MSMES had suffered a lot with sudden banning notes. On the other hand the government could not achieve its stated objectives for banning which included, controlling black money, terror financing, fake currency and promotion of digitalised transactions.

Especially the government failed to curb black money as Rs 15.31 lakh crore out of the estimated black money of Rs 15.41 lakh crore returned to the bank. Further, there was 3 fold or 260% rise in circulation of currency in this 7 years. In this backdrop it's very unfortunate to hear from the apex court that there is no flaw legally and it is satisfied as stands for test proportionality . Further the court satisfied with the arguments of government like one cannot set right the broken egg and it is highly impossible to reverse the clock. However in this episode the most sufferers are common people besides denting GDP by 1.5 %. So, the court could have done something to give relief to them. Further the dissent judge opinion must be prevailed in future as parliament should discuss this type of wide ranging issues.

Pratapa Reddy Yaramala, Tiruvuru

The Supreme Court has only upheld the legality of Centre's decision on Demonitisation but one should note that it didn't gave a clean chit to governments decision on demonitisation. The Supreme Court has only looked into the process, whether the process of demonitisation was constitutionally legal and whether the laws of RBI was followed or not. The verdict has nothing to say on whether the state objectives of Demonitisation were met or not. The move on demonitisation was aimed at unaccounted wealth, stem terror financing and curb counterfeiting. The main objectives of Demonitisation are not at all achieved. The circulation of fake currency has not stopped and fake currency is still circulating.

The second objective is unearthing of black money and bringing back of Rs 80 lakh crore black money stashed away abroad and depositing 15 lakh in every citizens account. Poor people are still eagerly waiting for the day when our PM will deposit 15 lakhs in their bank accounts. The third objective was to destroy the terror funding channels to terror networks. If the government has succeeded, then why are terror attacks still continuing in our country? Why are still innocent people dying due to terrorists attacks? Due to Demonitisation, there was slowdown across a spectrum of industries and also in agriculture, foresty and fishing. It is a clear fact that Government came out every time with new reasons for demonitisation and forced poor and honest common man to live in fools paradise. As said by former Prime Minister Man Mohan Singh: Demonitisation is " an organised loot and a legalized plunder". Demonitisation is a super flop step taken by Modi Government and it is a " very costly gamble".

Zeeshaan, Kazipet

SC verdict on note ban big win for Centre

The demonetisation of Rs. 500 and Rs.1000 by the Centre in 2016 that used to be a favourite stick to beat with by Congress, AIMIM and other political parties in the opposition; is upheld by a 5-judge Constitution bench of the Supreme Court will take a leaf out from the book of the Opposition in berating the Centre on this account. The Court held that the move by the Centre to be in the national interest, and it cannot be held that such power is not available to the Centre, the majority verdict said. The side-swipe on demonetisation and irrational criticism by former finance minister P Chidambaram, all these years, one hopes will cease forever which used to be a serious talking point on his part.

K V Raghuram, Wayanad

Since the demonetisation exercise was aimed to counter fake note, terror funding, the entire process was correct, the historic judgement is only of academic interest except it jolted the anti-demo lobby in the New Year. Despite a lone dissent, majority in the 5-judge constitution bench validated the November 8, 2016 demonetisation move by saying that it is not flawed and satisfies proportionality test. In fact, this has affirmed that there was reasonable nexus between objectives and the means to achieve it. Further the verdict clearly underlying the fact that as secrecy and speed is a must for demonetisation exercise to be successful, therefore not carrying out through legislation as earlier done in 1946 and 1978 does not mean centre had no power to do so through ordinance. All in all, the 4:1 verdict of the 5-judge constitution bench demonetisation judgement can be termed historic because the exercise on the whole was thoughtful, well-intentioned, targeted evils, not bad in law even though hardships faced by public because after all, at times, individual interest must yield to larger national interest.

K R Srinivasan, New Bhoiguda, Secunderabad