No grace period for depositing old notes, Government tells Supreme Court

NEW DELHI: The government isn’t considering giving more time to deposit demonetised currency notes, the finance ministry informed the Supreme Court on Friday. The ministry was responding to a court notice asking it to explain why citizenry should not be granted one more extension.

The government had initially given time until December 30, 2016 to deposit the old notes with banks. After that, it had said in a notification, those who couldn’t deposit the notes “shall be given an opportunity to do so at specified offices until a later date.”

In its affidavit, the ministry said the initial notification did not give anyone the right to seek exchange or deposit of the bank notes after December 30. Use of the word “shall” is not determinative of any such right in such as it was only an enabling provision to enable the government to meet any unforeseen or sudden contingencies that may arise during the period of demonetisation, the ministry said.

Therefore, the affidavit said, it did not impose any legal obligation on the central government. “Equally, the petitioner has no legal right to claim grace period.” The government said it came across several instances of malpractices and irregularities during IT raids and these had to be immediately arrested and plugged to achieve the stated objective of demonetisation.