In a surprising move, the Supreme Court on Wednesday said it will hear petitions against the 2016 demonetisation of high-value currency notes. It listed the matter for November 9. It wants the central government to “keep ready” the files about the decision to ban ? 500 and ? 1,000 notes – over 80 percent of all notes then in circulation – announced in a sudden, late-evening address by PM Narendra Modi as an “anti-corruption” measure. It also wants the Centre and the Reserve Bank to file responses. The decision to conduct a hearing after so many years in the true sense does not serve any purpose.
In 2016 within days of the ban, several people went to court and questioned the Constitutional validity of rendering notes worthless unless exchanged within a deadline. The SC never took the matter seriously. Many people have suffered from demonitisation. Some businesses have permanently closed down and many could not recover from its effect. Still today nobody knows what purpose it served. There is no data of how much black money was recovered from it. The demonitisation only helped Prime Minister Narendra Modi politically and he gained popularity for making the decision. This decision of the SC looks more like an “academic” exercise after six years.