Aditi Tandon
New Delhi, January 2
Supreme Court’s majority judgment upholding the constitutional validity of the government’s November 8, 2016, demonetisation decision sparked off a political slugfest, with the ruling BJP claiming vindication of stand and Opposition Congress harping on the dissenting judgment. Moments after Congress veteran P Chidambaram flagged the minority judgment as “a welcome slap on the wrist of the government,” senior BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad “condemned” former Finance Minister’s remarks as “scandalous and selective” while hailing the SC judgment as “historic and in national interest”.
The BJP said the note ban had dealt the biggest blow to terrorism and asked if former Congress president Rahul Gandhi would apologise for his anti-demonetisation campaign at home and abroad.
The BJP appears set to revive demonetisation as an issue in 2023 when nine states go to the polls. Prasad set the tone today saying, “The SC has upheld that the decision was for a valid cause to remove fake currency, black money, prevent terror funding and money laundering. The SC held the decision-making process as fair, concluded the RBI was consulted and that the government had the right to take economic policy decisions.”
An unimpressed Congress hit back with AICC general secretary Jairam Ramesh saying it was “misleading and wrong” to say that the apex court had upheld demonetisation. “The verdict is on the process of demonetisation and not its outcomes,” Ramesh said even as Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge described “demonetisation as a deep wound on the Indian economy that would fester forever.”
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