This is a great feature of our democracy that only after some important decision of the judiciary, we understand where we stand in the matter of civil rights.
Constitution of our country does not give us the right to criticize the decision given by the country’s top court regarding demonetisation six years ago or to criticize it.
Whereas in many democratic countries of the world, the decisions of the judiciary also come under the purview of public scrutiny.
But unfortunately there is no such system in our country because public criticism of any such decision will be considered as contempt of court and there is a provision for punishment.
It is obvious that when the top court of the country gives a decision on the basis of majority, then it has to be accepted by everyone, which cannot be challenged.
Therefore, the question is not whether the decision taken by the central government regarding the process of taking the decision of demonetisation is wrong.
But the big question is why the opinion of one judge of the five-judge constitution bench was different from the rest and why did he not refrain from being so fearless in giving such a decision?
However, after the decision of the Supreme Court, politics has also intensified on this and BJP and Congress have again come face to face on this.
While the Congress is reminding the loss caused to the country due to demonetisation, the BJP is enumerating its benefits and claiming that it has completely broken the back of the terrorists and Naxalites in the country.
But it too has no factual answer to the question as to how much black money has come out of it.
While announcing the decision of demonetisation, the government had claimed that after this there would be no trace of black money left in the country.
But even then the experts of the Reserve Bank had advised the government that demonetisation will not serve this purpose as most of the people have invested black money in buying land/property and gold which will remain intact despite demonetisation. The same happened.
The politics of the ruling party and the opposition has its place on this issue, but the real identity of a strong and fair democracy is that there the voice of the minority is given equal respect and its words are listened to with equal attention.
That’s why here we will not talk about those four judges of the constitution bench who had the same opinion and on the same basis they gave the same decision.
But every citizen of the country has a constitutional right to know that who is the judge who gave her opposite opinion and what was her decision.
Explain that in this important matter of demonetisation, Justice BV Nagaratna has expressed her disagreement with the other four judges and said that, “Demonetization of all series of notes at the behest of the Central Government is a much more serious issue than the demonetization of the bank. Therefore , it should have been done first through executive notification and then through legislation”.
She further added that as per section 26(2), the proposal for demonetisation can come only from the Central Board of RBI.
Justice Nagaratna also said in her judgment that the RBI did not use an independent mind and only approved the Centre’s wish for demonetisation.
“A perusal of the records produced by the RBI shows that the entire exercise was completed in just 24 hours due to the will of the Centre,” She said.
Undoubtedly, the very foundation of our democracy rests on the majority of the strength of numbers and the same scale is also applicable in the apex court which is called the biggest temple of justice.
But it is also a matter to think that if someone apart from the crowd gives his voice separately and impartially, should he/she be unheard so easily?
