Congress's P Chidambaram stopped short of questioning the Supreme Court verdict on notes ban today, and instead, pointed out its shortcomings. The lone dissenting judgment, he said, could act in future as a ground for change in the majority view. In this respect, he also quoted two cases -- one involving Justice DY Chandrachud, who is now the Chief Justice of India -- where the majority view was eventually overturned.
"Remember the ADM Jabalpur which upheld the Emergency powers of the government? There was a dissenting judgment by Justice Khanna which ultimately became the majority view of the Supreme Court today. Similarly, Justice Chandrachud's judgment in an earlier case was overturned by Dr Justice DY Chandrachud," Mr Chidambaram told NDTV in an exclusive interview.
"It is possible that the dissenting judgment could become the law declared by the Supreme Court," he said.The dissenting order, he added, will also ensure that the government never does a demonetisation again.
"The majority decision does not uphold either the wisdom or whether the objectives set out for demonetisation were achieved. We were absolutely clear that court can lay down the guidelines for future actions," Mr Chidambaram said.
Earlier today, a five-judge bench of the Supreme Court, in a 4-1 majority, backed the notes ban of 2016, saying it is "not relevant" whether the objective of the overnight ban was achieved.
Asked about the court's comment that the objective of the demonetisation does not matter, Mr Chidambaram said, "It does matter".
"You follow a process but don't achieve the objective, why put people through such difficulty. We bow down to the law. The minority judgment has explained that there was no consultation. It emanated from the Central government," he added.
In her strong dissenting judgment, Justice BV Nagarathna had said the notes ban was "vitiated and unlawful", disagreeing with the majority view that the Centre's six-month-long discussions with the Reserve Bank of India met the requirement.
"The problems associated with demonetisation make one wonder whether the central bank had visualised these," said Justice Nagarathna. She also pointed out that phrases like "As desired by the Central Government" in the documents and records submitted by Centre and the Reserve Bank of India, show there was "no independent application of mind by the RBI".
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