The Supreme Court on Friday asked the Union government to spell out the steps taken to ease the suffering and inconvenience of people in rural areas, who are mostly dependent on cooperative banks, post demonetisation.
A bench of Chief Justice T.S. Thakur and Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, while hearing a batch of pleas challenging various aspects of demonetisation, said all the parties should sit together and prepare a list of categories of cases that could be referred to High Courts and those that could be heard by the apex court.
Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi said the government was aware of the situation in cooperative banks, which lacked proper infrastructure and mechanism, compared to scheduled banks.
“Entire chapter in the additional affidavit filed by the Centre is dedicated to the issue of cooperative banks. It is not that we are not aware of the situation but these [the cooperative banks] lack proper facilities, mechanism and proper infrastructure as compared to scheduled banks,” he said.
The government deliberately kept cooperative banks out of the drive as these did not have the expertise to detect fake currency.
Mr. Rohatgi said, “Several cases are filed each passing day in various high courts on various aspects post demonetisation and it is not possible to deal with cases simultaneously in Kerala, Kolkata, Jaipur and Mumbai... All these matter should be clubbed together and be referred to any one high court or the apex court should hear them.”
Senior advocate P. Chidambaram, appearing for cooperative banks, questioned the government’s decision, saying the rural economy is almost paralysed due to non-inclusion of cooperative banks.
Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for one of the petitioners, suggested that they will sit together and file the list of categories by Monday.
The bench then posted the hearing on the matter to December 5.
