It took less than 24 hours for the first set of petitions to be filed against the Modi government’s demonetisation decision. Eight weeks la...
It took less than 24 hours for the first set of petitions to be filed against the Modi government’s demonetisation decision. Eight weeks later, at least 41 petitions had been filed in courts across the country.
But five years later, nothing has happened in the petitions. Even the Supreme Court bench that was supposed to hear the matter has not been formed.
Among the first to file a petition before the Supreme Court was Sangam Lal Pandey, a lawyer from Uttar Pradesh. He remembers filing it around 2 pm on November 9, 2016. He argued that the government’s decision was “arbitrary” and would cause a “huge inconvenience” to the public, so should be quashed.
Since then, he has filed four applications between 2017 and 2019 asking for a bench to be constituted to hear the matter.
“But there have been no hearings on that,” he said.
How it all transpired
The decision that has attracted these petition was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on November 8, 2016, at 8 pm. He appeared on television to inform Indians that Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes would stop being legal tender after midnight.
In one stroke, 86% of India’s currency had become worthless paper.
For a majority of Indians, who were entirely dependent on cash, this was...
