Indian Supreme Court refuses to stay govt's demonetisation move

India's Supreme Court Tuesday refused to stay the government's demonetisation move, but asserted that the "common man should not suffer".

A two-judge bench, headed by Chief Justice T.S. Thakur, made it clear to the Indian government that it should immediately take steps to mitigate the hardships of the common man who is "forced" to stand in queues to withdraw a little bit of his own hard-earned money.

"You call it surgical strike or carpet bombing, there is some collateral damage. The general feeling is it is causing inconvenience to common man. ... why can't you raise their cash withdrawal limit to a reasonable limit?" the court told the government.

It added: "Carpenters, masons, daily wage earners, maids, vegetable sellers are dependent on cash; we are only wondering if you are capable of doing anything to reduce the trauma of ordinary man?"

The apex court also asked Attorney-General Mukul Rohatgi, who appeared on behalf of the Indian government, to submit by November 25 a report on steps taken to ease the crunch for citizens.

The government has since Monday taken a slew of measures to alleviate the sufferings of the common people, including raising the cash withdrawal limit to 24,000 rupees (350 U.S. dollars) every week from the earlier restriction of 20,000 rupees (300 U.S. dollars) in one week.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who had last Tuesday announced the scrapping of currency notes of higher denominations has urged the country to give him "just 50 days" to clean up the system of black money and bear with the hardships for the larger good. Endit