SC to Centre: Centre cannot be allowed to deprive a person of his money if he couldn’t deposit it due to some of genuine problems

July 4,2017:

CJI Khehar enunciated that,“No individual can be deprived of his private property".

On Tuesday, Supreme Court has given Centre and the Reserve Bank of India two weeks time to consider granting of a window to those who have not been able to exchange the scrapped Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes for the genuine reasons.

Apex Court Bench comprising of Chief Justice of India Justice J S Khehar and Justice D Y Chandrachud expounded that,“You (Centre) cannot be allowed to deprive a person of his money if he couldn’t deposit it due to some of the genuine problems. Consider giving a window to a genuine problem. What if someone is terminally ill and couldn’t deposit money”.

Supreme Court was hearing the petitions challenging Government’s notification which disallowed the people from depositing the old notes after a prescribed time.

Responding to the query, Solicitor General Ranjit Kumar submitted that Government had not considered the individual cases.

Kumar further added that it was up to RBI to decide cases on an individual basis.

On November 8,2016, PM Narendra Modi had announced that Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes would be scrapped from next day. The government had assured that demonetised notes could be exchanged at the banks, the post offices and the RBI branches till December 30, 2016. Those unable to deposit notes by that day could do so at the RBI branches till the March 31, 2017, after complying with the certain formalities.