#Demonetisation: Why scrapped notes by citizens not accepted till March 31, Supreme Court asks Centre & RBI

New Delhi, March 21: Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the Narendra Modi-led government and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to file a reply within two weeks on the PIL filed by a person named Sharad Mishra, claiming that people are not being allowed to deposit their old currency notes till March 31 as promised by the ruling dispensation. Earlier the deadline was March 31, however, it was shifted to December later. The apex court asked the petitioner to show the documents whether he had visited the banks to deposit the old currency notes or not.

Supreme Court reminded the Central government that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had earlier said that citizens will have time till March end to flush out the old notes and deposit it into the banking channel of the system. Later, the government changed tunes, and the last date from March was shifted to December 2016.

As per a report published on NDTV, Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi told the judge, If PM Modi, on the deposits, earlier gave a deadline of end of March and the law doesn’t permit to allow this then the law will first come into effect. Chief Justice JS Khehar on this said that orders which banned old notes has overtaken PM Modi’s speech and did not come into the notice of the citizens of the country. Also, he added that a judgment cannot be formed prematurely on people’s helplessness to deposit old notes into the banking system of India even without granting them an opportunity.

Also, an extension was given to NRIs and the judges said that a separate window should have been implemented by the Centre for those who were unable to deposit the scrapped notes. The unprecedented move called ‘demonetisation’ was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on November 8, 2016 to win over corruption and end the black money practise. Many changes were made after this scheme came into effect.