Will not act against those who couldn't deposit demonetised notes: Centre to Supreme Court

NEW DELHI: The Centre told the Supreme Court on Friday that no criminal action would be taken against 14 petitioners who could not deposit demonetised currency notes of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500.

The apex court, meanwhile, disposed of 14 petitions seeking its nod to deposit demonetised notes and said that a five-judge Constitution Bench would deal with this aspect besides deciding the validity of Centre's decision to demonetise currency notes.

A bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra, Justice AM Khanwilkar and Justice DY Chandrachud said that besides raising their grievance, the petitioners could also assist the court in the adjudication of the challenge to the constitutional validity of the demonetisation decision.

Attorney General KK Venugopal said that the government will not take any coercive action against them for possessing demonetised currency.

The batch of 14 petitioners include NRIs who were not in the country when demonetisation took place and also those who were medically incapacitated.

The SC bench said the Constitution Bench would also deal with the individual plea of those who could not deposit their currency notes during the window period provided by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).

Some petitioners claim that they have not challenged the constitutional validity of either certain provisions of the RBI Act and Centre's November 8, 2016, notification, rather they want to deposit their demonetised currency notes.

"Our hard-earned money has been confiscated without due process of law and without granting fair opportunity," lawyer Pranav Sachdeva, appering for one of the petitioners said adding the Constitution bench be constituted as expeditiously as possible.

The bench asked the petitioners to file two to three-page-long interlocutory applications in the pending petitions which would be dealt by the constitution bench later.

It then disposed of individual petitions filed by 14 persons seeking permission to deposit currency notes on the ground that they could not deposit the notes with banks due to some unavoidable and compelling reasons.

The apex court had on December 16, last year referred to a Constitution Bench, the issue of validity of government's decision to demonetise currency notes of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500.

While holding that the challenge to November 8 notification was in the arena of "public importance" as complaints of inconvenience have been brought, it said there was a need for a direction for referring it to a larger bench for "authoritative pronouncement by five judges".

BJP to celebrate note ban anniversary

On November 8, 2016, the Centre had decided to scrap Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes.

On November 8, 2017 the BJP will organise programmes highlighting all the steps the government has taken against black money.

The Congress-led 18 Opposition parties have announced that they will observe November 8 as Black Day to protest against the "ill-conceived and hasty" decision of the government to scrap Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes a year ago.

The IMF has lowered India's growth projection to 6.7 percent in 2017, 0.5 percentage points less than its previous two forecasts in April and July, attributing it to demonetisation and introduction of the GST.