SC: List steps to ease cash woes in rural areas

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday asked the Centre to spell out measures taken to ease the sufferings and inconvenience of people in rural areas, who are mostly dependent on co-operative banks, post-demonetisation.

A bench of Chief Justice TS Thakur and Justice DY Chandrachud, while hearing a batch of pleas challenging various aspects of demonetisation, said all the parties should sit together and prepare a list of categories of cases which could be referred to high courts and those that could be heard by the apex court.

Attorney general Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for the Centre, said: “Entire chapter in the additional affidavit filed by the Centre is dedicated to the issue of co-operative banks. It is not that we are not aware of the situation but these (the co-operative banks) lack proper facilities, mechanism and proper infrastructure as compared to scheduled banks,” he said. He said that the government has deliberately kept co-operative banks out of the drive as these did not have the expertise to detect fake currency.

Senior advocate P Chidambaram, appearing for co-operative banks, questioned the government’s decision, saying that the rural economy is almost paralysed due to non-inclusion of co-operative banks.

The bench posted the hearing to December 5.