Centre to SC- Giving more time to deposit old notes will defeat the purpose of demonetisation

The Centre filed an affidavit before the Supreme Court making it clear that more time cannot be given to deposit old currency notes as the same would defeat the purpose of demonetisation which was aimed at eliminating black money.

The centre's response was rendered after the Chief Justice of India, during the last hearing urged the centre to give more time to people who were unable to visit banks for depositing money due to genuine reasons.

The bench headed by CJI while hearing a bunch of petitions filed by those who were denied permission by the RBI to deposit their money after the window for such exchange has expired observed that “ What if someone is terminally ill and could not deposit the money. If someone has a genuine reason you cannot deny him the opportunity to deposit the money. You can not be allowed to deprive a person of his own money.”

The centre submitted in its response that, “ going by the extent and enormity of the malpractices observed during post demonetisation period, it is apparent that in case the fresh opportunity is offered for an exchange of SBNs, it would lead to rampant illegal trading of these SBNs thereby defeating the very purpose of demonetisation.

The centre further explained that, “ the very object of demonetisation and elimination of black money will be defeated if a window is opened for a further period as the persons in the possession of SBNs would have sufficient time and opportunity to carefully plan the reasons and excuses for not depositing the SBNs within the permitted period that is 30.12.2016. Any number of benami transactions and user proxies for the purpose of depositing and producing SBNs would then arise which the departments would have great difficulty in deciding any genuine case from the bogus ones.”

Centre thereafter submitted, “ that the period 09.11.2016 to 30.12.2016 was fairly a very long period during which any one can either himself or through his authorised agent/third person could have deposited/exchanged the specified bank notes subject to following the prescribed norms. In other words, what was permitted was exchange and or deposit of specified bank notes during a block period a period up to and including 30.12.2016 either in person or through authorised third person.”