 "SC adjourns to November 24 pleas against 2016 demonetisation by govt")
The Supreme Court on Wednesday deferred to November 24 the hearing on a batch of pleas challenging the Centre's 2016 decision to demonetise currency notes of denomination of Rs 500 and Rs 1000.
A five-judge constitution bench headed by Justice S A Nazeer adjourned the matter after Attorney General R Venkataramani sought time to file a comprehensive affidavit in the matter.
Venkataramani apologised to the bench also comprising Justices B R Gavai, A S Bopanna, V Ramasubramanian, and B V Nagarathna, for not being able to prepare the comprehensive affidavit and sought a week's time.
Senior advocate Shyam Divan, representing petitioner Vivek Narayan Sharma, said this is highly unusual to ask a Constitution Bench for adjournment.
Senior advocate P Chidambaram, appearing for one of the parties, said this is an embarrassing situation.
Justice Nagarathna observed that normally the Constitution Bench does not rise like this and this is very embarrassing.
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The top court granted one week time to the Centre to file an affidavit.
The bench was hearing a batch of 58 petitions challenging the Centre's November 8, 2016 decision to demonetise the currency notes.
On December 16, 2016, a bench headed by then Chief Justice TS Thakur had referred the question of the validity of the decision and other related matters to a larger bench of five judges for an authoritative pronouncement.