New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday deferred to November 24 the hearing on a batch of pleas challenging the Centre’s 2016 decision to demonetise currency notes of denomination of Rs 500 and Rs 1000. A five-judge constitution bench headed by Justice S A Nazeer adjourned the matter after Attorney General R Venkataramani sought time to file a comprehensive affidavit in the matter.
Venkataramani apologised to the bench also comprising Justices B R Gavai, A S Bopanna, V Ramasubramanian, and B V Nagarathna, for not being able to prepare the comprehensive affidavit and sought a week’s time.
Senior advocate Shyam Divan, representing petitioner Vivek Narayan Sharma, said this is highly unusual to ask a Constitution Bench for adjournment. Senior advocate P Chidambaram, appearing for one of the parties, said this is an embarrassing situation.
Justice Nagarathna observed that normally the Constitution Bench does not rise like this and this is very embarrassing. The top court granted one week time to the Centre to file an affidavit. The bench was hearing a batch of 58 petitions challenging the Centre’s November 8, 2016 decision to demonetise the currency notes.
On December 16, 2016, a bench headed by then Chief Justice TS Thakur had referred the question of the validity of the decision and other related matters to a larger bench of five judges for an authoritative pronouncement.
