The Evening Wrap: Supreme Court directs Centre, RBI to produce records relating to demonetisation

The Supreme Court on December 7 directed the Centre and the RBI to place on record the “relevant records” relating to the government’s 2016 decision to demonetise currency notes of ₹1,000 and ₹500 denomination for its perusal. Reserving its verdict on a batch of pleas challenging the Centre’s decision, a five-judge Constitution Bench headed by Justice S.A. Nazeer heard the submissions from Attorney-General R. Venkataramani, RBI’s counsel, and the petitioners’ lawyers, including senior advocates P. Chidambaram and Shyam Divan. The Attorney-General said that the documents will be handed over in a sealed cover. The court had said it cannot be expected to fold its hands and sit without judicially reviewing the procedure or manner in which the decision to demonetise ₹500 and ₹1,000 currency notes were withdrawn from legal tender in November 2016. The Supreme Court has also asked the government whether it would have brushed aside objections from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had the central bank opposed the demonetisation policy. MCD election results 2022: AAP gets majority, ends BJP’s rule in Delhi civic body The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) recorded its maiden victory at the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) elections after winning 134 seats out of 250, putting an end to the BJP’s 15-year term at the civic body. The saffron party secured 104 seats out of 250, a massive dip from its 2017 civic poll total of 181 seats. Meanwhile, the Congress continued to see a dip in its seat share after winning only nine seats. In the 2017 and 2012 civic polls, the Congress had won 77 and 31 seats, respectively. The highest winning margin, of 17,134, was recorded in the Chandni Mahal ward with AAP’s Aaley Mohamed Iqbal securing the seat. The lowest winning margin, of 44, was recorded in the Chitaranjan Park ward with AAP’s Ashu Thakur securing the seat. Sultana Abad of the AAP won the Jama Masjid ward, while the party’s Sarika Chaudhary defeated Congress’ Farhad Suri by a margin of 244 votes in the Daryaganj seat. The BJP’s Alka Raghav emerged victorious in Laxmi Nagar by a margin of 3,819 votes, while the party’s Rohini D candidate Smita also registered a win. AAP’s Ankush Narang has won from the Ranjeet Nagar seat. A total of 73,35,825 votes were polled, out of which 57,545 were NOTA. Addressing the media, AAP convenor and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said the politics of election is over and it was time to work together to make Delhi better. “Today people of Delhi have given responsibility of cleaning Delhi, ending corruption, fixing parks... I will work day and night to keep your trust,” Kejriwal said adding that he would reach out to the Congress and the BJP Councilors for their cooperation. party leaders, however, felt that this was not a defeat as despite the anti-incumbency of 15 years, the BJP has managed to win more than 100 seats. Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said, “People have removed corrupt BJP and have given mandate for staunchly honest AAP to form government in the MCD.” Reacting to the poll results, Delhi BJP president Adesh Gupta said, “Somewhere we could not take our achievements and good works to the people and convince them properly.” On MCD election results, AAP Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh said, “It is now clear that in the entire country, the only alternative to Narendra Modi is Arvind Kejriwal and the only alternative to BJP is AAP.” The counting of votes polled in the Delhi Municipal Corporation elections began on December 7 morning amid tight security arrangements. This was the first election after the MCD was reunified earlier this year. The MCD has 250 wards, and the simple majority mark is 126. In the 2017 civic election, the BJP had won 181 of the 270 wards. Polling could not be held on two seats due to the death of candidates. The AAP had won 48 wards and the Congress 27. The voting percentage that year was around 53. This year, the highest polling percentage (65.72) has been recorded in ward no. 5 (Bakhtawarpur), while the lowest (33.74 per cent) was registered in ward no. 145 (Andrews Ganj). The high-stakes election to the 250 wards of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) was held on December 4, sealing the electoral fate of 1,349 candidates in voting machines. A voter turnout of 50.48% was registered in the elections. This was the first civic election after the reunification of the civic bodies and a fresh delimitation exercise. There were 272 wards in Delhi and three corporations- NDMC, SDMC and EDMC - from 2012-2022, before being reunified into an MCD that had formally come into existence on May 22. The erstwhile MCD, established in 1958, was trifurcated in 2012 during Sheila Dikshit’s tenure as the chief minister. EWS reservation: Backward Classes Federation files review petition against majority-verdict of Supreme Court The All India Backward Classes Federation has filed a review petition against a majority judgment of the Supreme Court which upheld the 10% reservation in government jobs and institutions for economically weaker sections (EWS), including forward castes, of the society. The review petition, settled by Professor G. Mohan Gopal, said EWS reservation was for a social- and educational class, the forward class amongst them, with a creamy layer cut-off. As a result, the majority opinions of three judges on the Bench only considered the issue whether reservation structured solely on economic grounds violated the Basic Structure of the Constitution. “Whereas the fact is that an economically weaker section eligible for EWS is formed by two criteria: a) family income and other indicators of economic disadvantage and b) it shall not be Other Backward Classes (OBC), Scheduled Castes (SC) or Scheduled Tribes (ST),” the petition said. The three opinions which formed the majority on the Bench in November were by Justices Dinesh Maheshwari, J. B. Pardiwala and Bela Trivedi. The then Chief Justice U. U. Lalit and Justice S. Ravindra Bhat had formed the minority on the Bench. The petition said the judgment had upheld the “division of the population of India for purposes of reservation into mutually exclusive compartments, which is fundamentally destructive of the basic structure principle of fraternity”. The majority opinions had erroneously made a distinction between weaker sections and backward classes. The petition pointed out that the majority decisions had failed to consider the contention of the petitioner that affirmative action for forward castes/classes was a violation of the basic structure of the Constitution. It argued that the judgment did not address its contention that reservation could be only used narrowly as a tool for representation, to enhance equality by breaking social monopolies and oligarchies in State institutions, and that its use for any other purpose (such as as an employment/education scheme) would violate the Basic Structure and Equality and Social Justice Codes of the Constitution. The petition said the majority decisions rest on the erroneous assumption that OBC, SC, ST reservation was caste-based reservation. “This is a fatal error. The fact is that OBC, SC, ST reservation is not caste reservation. It is open to and inclusive of all castes, religions and communities (including caste-less communities such as the transgender community) that meet over 15 stipulated multi-dimensional deprivation criteria on social, economic, educational and political representation. OBC, SC, ST reservation is also, like EWS, for a social and educational class (the ‘backward’ class amongst them), with a creamy layer cut-off,” the petition argued. The DMK party, represented by senior advocate P. Wilson, has also filed a review petition against the EWS judgment. The petition contended that the majority opinions had relied on the erroneous assumption that EWS reservation was for sections of the population that had not received benefit of reservation in public employment and education. “The fact is that EWS reservation is open to those who qualify for a variety of reservations (such as women’s reservation, sportspersons reservation, domiciliary reservation, etc),” it said. Panel report that recommended Dalit Christians be allowed to avail SC quota benefits was written ‘within four corners of a room’, Centre tells Supreme Court The Centre in the Supreme Court on December 7 declared that the 2007 report of the Justice Ranganath Misra Commission for Religious and Linguistic Minorities, which recommended that Dalits who converted to Islam and Christianity to escape caste oppression in the Hindu religion should be permitted to avail of Scheduled Caste (SC) reservation benefits in government jobs and educational institutions, was “flawed” and composed within the “four walls of a room”. “It was written within the four walls of a room. There was no field study done… The Commission (Misra) took a myopic view of the social milieu in India. The findings of the Ranganath Misra Commission have not been accepted by the government,” Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, for the government, submitted before a three-judge Bench led by Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul. Mehta said a new Commission chaired by former Chief Justice of India K.G. Balakrishnan was constituted recently under the Commission of Inquiry Act, 1952 to re-examine the question whether SC status ought to be granted to “new persons” who had converted to religions other than Hinduism, Buddhism and Sikhism. Only persons professing these three religions are deemed to belong to the SC community. The inclusion of a group in the SC list under Clause 3 of the Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order, 1950 would be required to show “extreme social, educational and economic backwardness arising out of traditional practice of untouchability”. The government argued that Dalits who had converted to Christianity or Islam to overcome caste oppression cannot now return to claim reservation benefits enjoyed by those who chose to stay back in the Hindu religious system. Besides, the government said, Christianity is an egalitarian religion which did not adhere to any caste system. A person who claims to be a Dalit convert cannot profess Christianity and claim reservation benefits granted to the SC community. “One of the reasons for which people from Scheduled Castes have been converting to religions like Islam and Christianity is so that they can come out of the oppressive system of untouchability which is not prevalent at all in Christianity and Islam. Therefore, once they have come out and ameliorated their social status by converting themselves to Christianity or Islam they cannot claim to be backward since backwardness based on untouchability is only prevalent in the Hindu society or its branches and not in any other religion,” the government has argued in an affidavit. The Centre has said that SC converts to Christianity cannot be compared with Sikh and Buddhist converts. Scheduled Caste members had converted to Buddhism at the call of B.R. Ambedkar in 1956 on account of “some innate socio-political imperatives”. Their “original castes” could be clearly determined. “This cannot be said in respect of Christians and Muslims who might have converted on account of other factors, since the process of such conversions had taken place over the centuries,” the affidavit had said. On Wednesday, Mehta said the court may wait till the Justice Balakrishnan Commission came up with its recommendations. The time given to the Commission is two years. The Bench said it would examine the question whether the court should wait for the Balakrishnan Commission report or go ahead and hear a series of petitions seeking SC quota benefits for Dalit converts to other religions, primarily Christianity. The petitioners sought the court to declare Clause 3 of the 1950 Order to be declared unconstitutional and void as it denied benefits to SC converts to Christianity in respect of quota in jobs, political reservations under various laws and notifications in the country. The court listed the case for hearing in January next year. In Brief: The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Reserve Bank of India on December 7 increased the repo rate by 35 basis points (bps) to 6.25%, and the Standing Deposit Facility stands raised to 6%. The MPC’s majority view was to withdraw accommodative stance, said RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das. Inflation is expected to be 6.7% this year, with CPI inflation for the first quarter of 2023-24 projected at 5% and the second quarter at 5.4% on the assumption of a normal monsoon. The focus on inflation control continues and there will be no let-up in our efforts to bring down inflation, first below 6% and then closer to the 4% target, the Governor said. Evening Wrap will return tomorrow. [logo] The Evening Wrap 07 DECEMBER 2022 [The Hindu logo] Welcome to the Evening Wrap newsletter, your guide to the day’s biggest stories with concise analysis from The Hindu. [[Arrow]Open in browser]( [[Mail icon]More newsletters]( Dear reader, We have now made it easier for you to manage your The Hindu newsletter subscriptions in one place! 1. Visit [The Hindu newsletters page]( 2. Click MANAGE tab and then click LOGIN / SIGN UP 3. If you don’t have an account with The Hindu, please click SIGN UP OR If you already have an account with The Hindu with this email ID, please login using the email ID Demonetisation: Supreme Court directs Centre, RBI to produce records relating to 2016 decision The Supreme Court on December 7 directed the Centre and the RBI [to place on record the “relevant records” relating to the government’s 2016 decision to demonetise currency notes of ₹1,000 and ₹500]( denomination for its perusal. Reserving its verdict on a batch of pleas challenging the Centre’s decision, a five-judge Constitution Bench headed by Justice S.A. Nazeer heard the submissions from Attorney-General R. Venkataramani, RBI’s counsel, and the petitioners’ lawyers, including senior advocates P. Chidambaram and Shyam Divan. [The Supreme Court was hearing a batch of petitions challenging the demonetisation exercise announced by the Centre on November 8, 2016. File ] The Attorney-General said that the documents will be handed over in a sealed cover. The court had said it cannot be expected to fold its hands and sit without judicially reviewing the procedure or manner in which the decision to demonetise ₹500 and ₹1,000 currency notes were withdrawn from legal tender in November 2016. The Supreme Court has also asked the government whether it would have brushed aside objections from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had the central bank opposed the demonetisation policy. MCD election results 2022: AAP gets majority, ends BJP’s rule in Delhi civic body The [Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) recorded its maiden victory at the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) elections]( after winning 134 seats out of 250, putting an end to the BJP’s 15-year term at the civic body. The saffron party secured 104 seats out of 250, a massive dip from its 2017 civic poll total of 181 seats. Meanwhile, the Congress continued to see a dip in its seat share after winning only nine seats. In the 2017 and 2012 civic polls, the Congress had won 77 and 31 seats, respectively. The highest winning margin, of 17,134, was recorded in the Chandni Mahal ward with AAP’s Aaley Mohamed Iqbal securing the seat. The lowest winning margin, of 44, was recorded in the Chitaranjan Park ward with AAP’s Ashu Thakur securing the seat. Sultana Abad of the AAP won the Jama Masjid ward, while the party’s Sarika Chaudhary defeated Congress’ Farhad Suri by a margin of 244 votes in the Daryaganj seat. The BJP’s Alka Raghav emerged victorious in Laxmi Nagar by a margin of 3,819 votes, while the party’s Rohini D candidate Smita also registered a win. AAP’s Ankush Narang has won from the Ranjeet Nagar seat. A total of 73,35,825 votes were polled, out of which 57,545 were NOTA. Addressing the media, AAP convenor and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said the politics of election is over and it was time to work together to make Delhi better. “Today people of Delhi have given responsibility of cleaning Delhi, ending corruption, fixing parks... I will work day and night to keep your trust,” Kejriwal said adding that he would reach out to the Congress and the BJP Councilors for their cooperation. party leaders, however, felt that this was not a defeat as despite the anti-incumbency of 15 years, the BJP has managed to win more than 100 seats. Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said, “People have removed corrupt BJP and have given mandate for staunchly honest AAP to form government in the MCD.” Reacting to the poll results, Delhi BJP president Adesh Gupta said, “Somewhere we could not take our achievements and good works to the people and convince them properly.” On MCD election results, AAP Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh said, “It is now clear that in the entire country, the only alternative to Narendra Modi is Arvind Kejriwal and the only alternative to BJP is AAP.” The counting of votes polled in the Delhi Municipal Corporation elections began on December 7 morning amid tight security arrangements. This was the first election after the MCD was reunified earlier this year. The MCD has 250 wards, and the simple majority mark is 126. In the 2017 civic election, the BJP had won 181 of the 270 wards. Polling could not be held on two seats due to the death of candidates. The AAP had won 48 wards and the Congress 27. The voting percentage that year was around 53. This year, the highest polling percentage (65.72) has been recorded in ward no. 5 (Bakhtawarpur), while the lowest (33.74 per cent) was registered in ward no. 145 (Andrews Ganj). The high-stakes election to the 250 wards of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) was held on December 4, sealing the electoral fate of 1,349 candidates in voting machines. A voter turnout of 50.48% was registered in the elections. This was the first civic election after the reunification of the civic bodies and a fresh delimitation exercise. There were 272 wards in Delhi and three corporations- NDMC, SDMC and EDMC - from 2012-2022, before being reunified into an MCD that had formally come into existence on May 22. The erstwhile MCD, established in 1958, was trifurcated in 2012 during Sheila Dikshit’s tenure as the chief minister. EWS reservation: Backward Classes Federation files review petition against majority-verdict of Supreme Court The All India Backward Classes Federation has [filed a review petition against a majority judgment of the Supreme Court]( which upheld the 10% reservation in government jobs and institutions for economically weaker sections (EWS), including forward castes, of the society. The review petition, settled by Professor G. Mohan Gopal, said EWS reservation was for a social- and educational class, the forward class amongst them, with a creamy layer cut-off. As a result, the majority opinions of three judges on the Bench only considered the issue whether reservation structured solely on economic grounds violated the Basic Structure of the Constitution. “Whereas the fact is that an economically weaker section eligible for EWS is formed by two criteria: a) family income and other indicators of economic disadvantage and b) it shall not be Other Backward Classes (OBC), Scheduled Castes (SC) or Scheduled Tribes (ST),” the petition said. The three opinions which formed the majority on the Bench in November were by Justices Dinesh Maheshwari, J. B. Pardiwala and Bela Trivedi. The then Chief Justice U. U. Lalit and Justice S. Ravindra Bhat had formed the minority on the Bench. The petition said the judgment had upheld the “division of the population of India for purposes of reservation into mutually exclusive compartments, which is fundamentally destructive of the basic structure principle of fraternity”. The majority opinions had erroneously made a distinction between weaker sections and backward classes. The petition pointed out that the majority decisions had failed to consider the contention of the petitioner that affirmative action for forward castes/classes was a violation of the basic structure of the Constitution. It argued that the judgment did not address its contention that reservation could be only used narrowly as a tool for representation, to enhance equality by breaking social monopolies and oligarchies in State institutions, and that its use for any other purpose (such as as an employment/education scheme) would violate the Basic Structure and Equality and Social Justice Codes of the Constitution. The petition said the majority decisions rest on the erroneous assumption that OBC, SC, ST reservation was caste-based reservation. “This is a fatal error. The fact is that OBC, SC, ST reservation is not caste reservation. It is open to and inclusive of all castes, religions and communities (including caste-less communities such as the transgender community) that meet over 15 stipulated multi-dimensional deprivation criteria on social, economic, educational and political representation. OBC, SC, ST reservation is also, like EWS, for a social and educational class (the ‘backward’ class amongst them), with a creamy layer cut-off,” the petition argued. The DMK party, represented by senior advocate P. Wilson, has also filed a review petition against the EWS judgment. The petition contended that the majority opinions had relied on the erroneous assumption that EWS reservation was for sections of the population that had not received benefit of reservation in public employment and education. “The fact is that EWS reservation is open to those who qualify for a variety of reservations (such as women’s reservation, sportspersons reservation, domiciliary reservation, etc),” it said. Panel report that recommended Dalit Christians be allowed to avail SC quota benefits was written ‘within four corners of a room’, Centre tells Supreme Court The Centre in the Supreme Court on December 7 declared that the 2007 report of the Justice Ranganath Misra Commission for Religious and Linguistic Minorities, which recommended that Dalits who converted to Islam and Christianity to escape caste oppression in the Hindu religion should be permitted to avail of Scheduled Caste (SC) reservation benefits in government jobs and educational institutions, was [“flawed” and composed within the “four walls of a room”](. “It was written within the four walls of a room. There was no field study done… The Commission (Misra) took a myopic view of the social milieu in India. The findings of the Ranganath Misra Commission have not been accepted by the government,” Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, for the government, submitted before a three-judge Bench led by Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul. Mehta said a new Commission chaired by former Chief Justice of India K.G. Balakrishnan was constituted recently under the Commission of Inquiry Act, 1952 to re-examine the question whether SC status ought to be granted to “new persons” who had converted to religions other than Hinduism, Buddhism and Sikhism. Only persons professing these three religions are deemed to belong to the SC community. The inclusion of a group in the SC list under Clause 3 of the Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order, 1950 would be required to show “extreme social, educational and economic backwardness arising out of traditional practice of untouchability”. The government argued that Dalits who had converted to Christianity or Islam to overcome caste oppression cannot now return to claim reservation benefits enjoyed by those who chose to stay back in the Hindu religious system. Besides, the government said, Christianity is an egalitarian religion which did not adhere to any caste system. A person who claims to be a Dalit convert cannot profess Christianity and claim reservation benefits granted to the SC community. “One of the reasons for which people from Scheduled Castes have been converting to religions like Islam and Christianity is so that they can come out of the oppressive system of untouchability which is not prevalent at all in Christianity and Islam. Therefore, once they have come out and ameliorated their social status by converting themselves to Christianity or Islam they cannot claim to be backward since backwardness based on untouchability is only prevalent in the Hindu society or its branches and not in any other religion,” the government has argued in an affidavit. The Centre has said that SC converts to Christianity cannot be compared with Sikh and Buddhist converts. Scheduled Caste members had converted to Buddhism at the call of B.R. Ambedkar in 1956 on account of “some innate socio-political imperatives”. Their “original castes” could be clearly determined. “This cannot be said in respect of Christians and Muslims who might have converted on account of other factors, since the process of such conversions had taken place over the centuries,” the affidavit had said. On Wednesday, Mehta said the court may wait till the Justice Balakrishnan Commission came up with its recommendations. The time given to the Commission is two years. The Bench said it would examine the question whether the court should wait for the Balakrishnan Commission report or go ahead and hear a series of petitions seeking SC quota benefits for Dalit converts to other religions, primarily Christianity. The petitioners sought the court to declare Clause 3 of the 1950 Order to be declared unconstitutional and void as it denied benefits to SC converts to Christianity in respect of quota in jobs, political reservations under various laws and notifications in the country. The court listed the case for hearing in January next year. In Brief: The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Reserve Bank of India on December 7[increased the repo rate by 35 basis points (bps) to 6.25%]( and the Standing Deposit Facility stands raised to 6%. The MPC’s majority view was to withdraw accommodative stance, said RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das. Inflation is expected to be 6.7% this year, with CPI inflation for the first quarter of 2023-24 projected at 5% and the second quarter at 5.4% on the assumption of a normal monsoon. The focus on inflation control continues and there will be no let-up in our efforts to bring down inflation, first below 6% and then closer to the 4% target, the Governor said. Evening Wrap will return tomorrow. 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