Supreme Court verdict on pleas challenging the government's 2016 decision to demonetise currency today

The Supreme Court is scheduled to pronounce its judgment on Monday on a batch of pleas challenging the government's 2016 decision to demonetise currency notes of ₹1,000 and ₹500 denominations. A five-judge Constitution bench headed by Justice SA Nazeer, who will retire on January 4, is likely to pronounce its verdict on the matter on January 2, when the top court will reopen after its winter break.

According to Monday's cause list of the top court, there will be two separate judgements in the matter, which will be pronounced by justices BR Gavai and BV Nagarathna. It is not clear whether the two judgements will be concurring or dissenting.

Besides Justices Nazeer, Gavai and Nagarathna, the other members of the five-judge bench are Justices AS Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian.


The top court had, on December 7, directed the Centre and the Reserve Bank of India to put on record the relevant records relating to the government's 2016 decision and reserved its verdict. It heard the arguments of Attorney General R Venkataramani, RBI's counsel and petitioners' lawyers, including senior advocates P Chidambaram and Shyam Divan.

Resisting the apex court's attempt to revisit the 2016 demonetisation exercise, the government had said the court cannot decide a matter when no tangible relief can be granted by way of "putting the clock back" and "unscrambling a scrambled egg".