HC dismisses PIL against demonetisation

The Madras High Court today dismissed a PIL seeking a direction to the Union government to declare the notification on demonetisation as illegal and ultra vires to provisions of the Reserve Bank of India Act.
When the PIL filed by Suchitra Vijayan, barrister-at-law, came up earlier, the court said counsel for the Union government had pointed out that the challenge to the notification has already been rejected by a division bench of the high court's Madurai bench.
The First Bench, comprising Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice M Sundar, today found fault with the petitioner for the language used by her while referring to the order passed by the Madurai bench.

In its order, the court said, "The language should have been eschewed."
"The petitioner has also referred to the implementation of the demonetisation policy which is alleged to have caused loss of life and disruption of economic livelihood," it said.
This would be matter of implementation rather than challenge to the policy and the Supreme Court is already seized of the issue, it said.

"We are, thus, not inclined to entertain this petition, a coordinate bench of this court having examined the whole issue in another writ petition before the Madurai bench decided on 10.11.2016. Writ petition stands dismissed," the court said.

According to the PIL, the government has failed to assess the effects of demonetisation diligently and failed to prepare the country for one of the biggest policy implementations in its banking history.
The demonetisation of the entire denomination of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes was outside the scope of section 26 of the RBI Act, it contended.