Bombay High Court rejects lawyers' plea against currency ban

The Bombay High Court on Wednesday refused to grant any relief to two advocates who had mentioned their case before the court urging it to take suo-moto cognizance of the Union Government decision on demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 currency notes with immediate effect.

A vacation bench of Justice M S Karnik asked the two advoctes Jamshed Mistry and Jabbar Singh to plead their case before the regular bench of the High Court once it reopens next week.

Mistry claimed that the government's move was rushed and had caused unprecedented inconvenience to the general public. The two advocates argued that a notification of the Reserve Bank of India that was sent out to all nationalised banks, the RBI had said that as part of a 'pilot project', all banks must ensure that "within the next 15 days", at least 10% of their authorised ATM machines should dispense currency notes of Rs 100 denomination.

Mistry argued that the notification made it clear that this project was initiated on a pilot basis and thus, the Centre shouldn't have rushed into it. As per the law, the government needed to come out with an ordinance and then an Act before such a move, he said.

Mistry said that in 1978, during the emergency, the ordinance followed by an Act called The High Denomination Bank Notes Act, 1978, was passed to bring demonetisation into effect. Therefore, the requirement is that the current demonetisation could have been done only through an ordinance, or amendment of the Act, and not merely through a gazetted notification. Further only a four hour notice is no notice at all and that one's right to life and right to occupation/conduct business were severely affected.