New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to hear a PIL filed by BJP leader and advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay seeking complete ban on all high value currency notes like Rs 500, Rs 1,000 and the newly issued Rs 2,000 notes.
A bench comprising Chief Justice T.S Thakur and Justices D.Y. Chandrachud and L. Nageswara Rao agreed to hear the petition along with other PILs to demonetisation listed on December 2.
The petitioner also sought a direction to the government to take appropriate steps to withdraw all direct and indirect taxes except custom and import duties; and implement a banking transaction tax on receiving/credit account.
The petition alleged that high denomination currency of over Rs 100 is used in illegal activities like terrorism, naxalism, separatism, radicalism, gambling, smuggling, money laundering, kidnapping, extortion, bribing and dowry.
It said these notes also inflate the price of essential commodities as well as major assets like real estate, gold etc. These problems can be curbed by recalling high denomination currencies above Rs 100 and making legal provisions to restrict cash transaction up to the limit of Rs 5000. it sought a direction to recall the higher denomination currency notes of above 100 rupees.
Meanwhile District Co-operative Bank in Kerala have moved the Supreme Court challenging the RBI’s circular restraining them from accepting deposits and exchanging scrapped notes vis-a-vis other similarly situated banks and financial institutions.
They said the notifications, sought to ex facie discriminate them without there being any reasonable and intelligible classification. They contended that cooperative banks are entitled to deposit scrapped notes with banking institutions. Ideally, the said facility should have been extended to and included the District Co-operative Banks also, which is, however, sought to be restricted.
