SC Rejects Pleas Challenging Demonetization

SC Rejects Pleas Challenging Demonetization

A 5-judge Constitution bench of the Supreme Court today upheld the validity of Centre's decision on demonetisation. While 4 judges – Justices S.A. Nazeer, B.R. Gavai, A.S. Bopanna, V. Ramasubramanian upheld the government's decision, Justice B.V. Nagarathna pronounced her lone dissent judgment.

It is very difficult for common citizens to understand legal intricacies and the nuances that are taken into consideration for writing the judgment. 

In June 12, 1975 verdict of the Allahabad High Court convicted then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi of electoral malpractices and debarring her from holding any elected post, even when Justice JML Sinha was approached before reading his judgment and was offered a promotion to the Supreme Court by Indira Gandhi.

Later on an appeal filed by Indira Gandhi, Justice VR Krishna Iyer – a vacation judge of the Supreme Court - on June 24, 1975 granted a conditional stay on Justice Sinha’s verdict allowing her to continue as Prime Minister. However, she was debarred from taking part in parliamentary proceedings and drawing a salary as an MP.

Interestingly, the very next day she imposed the Emergency suspending all fundamental rights, putting opposition leaders in jails and imposing censorship on the media.

Justice HR Khanna's lone courageous dissenting minority judgment in the highly publicized Habeas corpus case during the Indian Emergency, in which the remaining four judges of the five-member bench, Chief Justice A. N. Ray, Justice M. H. Beg, Justice Y. V. Chandrachud and Justice P. N. Bhagwati, agreed with the government's view and submission that even the fundamental rights enshrined in the Constitution of India like the right to life and liberty stood abrogated during the period of national emergency. 

How we as common citizens of India view the situation that at the height of the Emergency, four judges of the Supreme Court had viewed that a person has no right to appeal against unlawful detention when the State was in emergency. Justice Khanna dissented. He had to pay the price for his lone and bold dissent. He was superseded by justice HM Beg to Chief Justice of India. Justice Khanna resigned. For his unflinching integrity Justice HR Khanna is still eulogized.

Justice BV Nagarathna spoke her mind as to what her scholarship dictated to her. Will she also pay the price? There is nothing impossible in politics. 

We are not legal scholars. We are the sufferers of demonetisation as citizens is the fact. We are also baffled as to how the apex court upheld the administrative inadequacies of procedural irregularities. This much we also understand. Let the legal experts debate. The reality is the whole nation suffered. Has the apex court addressed the consequences of demonetization and the procedural flaw in implementing it? The informal industries suffered. MSMEs suffered. The largest provider of jobs by these sectors suffered a great deal. Many became jobless due to retrenchment. The common man suffered. In this cobweb of chicanery only the common man is at loss.