MADURAI: The Madras High Court Bench here on Wednesday refused to pass any kind of orders with respect to exchange of demonetised Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 currency notes recovered by the police after November 9, when the demonetisation came into effect. The bench said there was every likelihood of false complaints of robbery and extortion being preferred to get black money converted into white through court orders.
While disposing of a public interest litigation petition taken up by the court suo motu to save demonetised notes that were in the custody of lower courts in the State in connection with various criminal cases before November 9, a Division Bench of Justices S. Nagamuthu and M.V. Muralidaran left it to the government to take an appropriate decision with respect to demonetised notes seized by police on or after November 9.
However, in so far as the currency notes that were in court custody before November 9 was concerned, the judges recorded the submission of Additional Solicitor General G. Rajagopalan that the deadline of March 31, 2017 for exchanging the demonetised notes would not apply to the currency in court custody. It was made clear that such notes could be exchanged at any nationalised bank after the completion of trial along with a court order copy.
Taking note of the fact that in some cases, trial court had given interim custody of currency notes to their owners with a condition to keep them intact until the completion of trial, the Division Bench ordered that those having interim custody of such notes should return them to the lower court concerned and obtain an order to get them exchanged. While passing orders permitting exchange of those notes, the lower courts should mention the serial numbers of those notes, the judges clarified.
The court had taken suo motu notice of the issue after finding that Rs. 5.8 crore was in the custody of courts in 13 districts falling within the jurisdiction of the High Court Bench and of that money the courts in Karur district alone had demonetised Rs. 500 notes worth Rs.6.4 lakh and Rs.1,000 notes worth Rs. 44.09 lakh.
