“It (demonetisation) damaged the growth momentum, crippled MSMEs, finished off the informal sector & destroyed lakhs and lakhs of livelihoods,” Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said.

NEW DELHI — The Congress on Monday while reacting to the Supreme Court judgement on demonetisation said the court only pronounced its verdict on whether Section 26(2) of the RBI Act, 1934 was correctly applied or not before the announcement was made on November 8, 2016 by the Centre, and to say that it has been upheld by the court was “totally misleading and wrong”.

“Nothing more, nothing less. One Hon’ble Judge in her dissenting opinion has said that Parliament should not have been bypassed,” senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said.

He said there is nothing on the impact of demonetisation which was a singularly disastrous decision.

“It damaged the growth momentum, crippled MSMEs, finished off the informal sector & destroyed lakhs and lakhs of livelihoods,” he added.

The verdict has nothing to say on whether the stated objectives of demonetisation were met or not. None of these goals – reducing currency in circulation, moving to a cashless economy, curbing counterfeit currency, ending terrorism and unearthing black money – was achieved in a significant measure.

The majority of Supreme Court verdict deals with the limited issue of the process of decision-making and not with its outcomes. — IANS