Won’t take action against holders of demonetised notes: Centre to Supreme Court

The government on Friday assured that it would not take any action against those who had approached the Supreme Court to prevail upon the government to take back old demonetised notes even as the top court rejected the plea.

Attorney General of India KK Venugopal, the senior-most law officer of the country, made this assurance before a three-judge bench led by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dipak Misra during the hearing of a slew of petitions seeking court intervention to get the government to offer a last window to deposit demonetised notes in exchange for new notes.

The bench refused a prayer by lawyer Pranav Sachdeva to allow the petitioners to deposit the old notes with the government for now.

“Our property was taken away by the government without any notice or compensation,” Sachdeva told the bench that included Justices AM Khanwilkar and DY Chandrachud. CJI Misra, however, shrugged off this comparison, saying, “It’s not property in that sense.”

Sachdeva further said, “Some of these people (who have filed petitions) are old. Others are sick. Some were outside the country and came back later. They should be allowed to deposit these notes with the government.” But the bench refused to do that.

Instead, the CJI said all these petitions would now come up for hearing along with other petitions challenging the government decision to demonetise old notes.