A division bench of the Hyderabad High Court comprising Acting Chief Justice Ramesh Ranganathan and Justice A. Shankara Narayana on Tuesday refused to grant interim orders in the two cases filed on the demonetisation issue.
It said granting interim orders at this stage was not proper, though prima facie a case was made out by the petitioners. The cases would be heard on December 8. It heard Additional Solicitor-General of India Natarajan, who told the court that the action of the Central government in demonetising currency notes of Rs. 500 and Rs.1000 was in accordance with the law.
He placed copies of the orders of the Madurai bench of the Tamil Nadu High Court and of the Karnataka High Court that had dismissed similar cases.
The bench pointed out that the issue raised here was quite different. Section 26 of the Reserve Bank of India Act permitted withdrawal of one series of currency notes only. The present action was not permissible under the act.
There was violation of Article 300-A of the Constitution that protected the right to property and the currency was property. The court was told by senior counsel for petitioners that RBI’s Board was not empowered to make recommendations for the present demonetisation and that its functions were not defined under the Act. The senior law officer said these were new questions raised here and said he would file counter-affidavit.
The Additional Solicitor-General averred that it was not mandatory to effect the demonetisation only through legislation.
Even a fax communication was enough, he said. The bench granted time till Dec 8 to the Union government to file its counter.
The bench also took on file a PIL filed by former Minister Mysoora Reddy who complained that the action was anti-poor and was causing great hardship to the poor and needy.
The bench said that some hardship was being caused but the citizens had to put up with it to some extent. The court reminded the Additional Solicitor-General that the issue of cash crunch might be taken care of by the Union of India.
