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Delhi: The Delhi High Court held on Monday that ₹2,000 notes have served their purpose and the decision to withdraw the same is a policy matter which should not be interfered with by the courts.
A Division Bench of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Subramonium Prasad noted that ₹2,000 denomination banknotes were introduced to meet the currency requirement of the economy in the backdrop of the Centre’s decision to demonetise high value currency notes in November 2016.
The objective was met once banknotes in other denominations became available in adequate quantities, the Court said.
It further observed that the decision to withdraw these notes is not part of demonetisation. Further, the government has taken a decision not to insist upon requirement of identity proof for exchange of these notes so that everybody can exchange the same with banknotes of other denominations.
“Therefore, it cannot be said that the decision of the Government is perverse or arbitrary or it encourages black money, money laundering, profiteering or it abets corruption,” the judgment stated.
The Bench, therefore, dismissed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by BJP leader and Advocate Ashwini Upadhyay challenging the May 19 Reserve Bank of India (RBI) notification on the exchange of the currency.
Upadhyay had challenged the notification only to the extent that it allows exchange of these notes without any identification.
However, the Court held that it will not sit in appeal over the government’s decision.
“In the considered opinion of this Court, the present PIL is devoid of merits. Resultantly, the PIL is dismissed, along with pending application(s), if any,” the Bench finally ordered.
Ashwini Upadhyay appeared in person.
Additional Solicitor General Chetan Sharma, Central Government Standing Counsel (CGSC) Apoorv Kurup as well as Advocates Amit Gupta, Saurabh Tripathi, Aakansh Srivastava, Vikramaditya Singh and Apoorva Jha appeared for the Central government.
Senior Advocate Parag P Tripathi with Advocates Ramesh Babu, Nisha Sharma, Tanya Chowdhary and Vashundhara Bakhru appeared for RBI.
SBI was represented through Advocates Rajiv Kapur, Akshit Kapur and Tushar Bagga.
