Ordinance on penalties for old notes senseless

It is hard to understand why the government wants to bring in an ordinance making it punishable to keep old demonetised notes beyond a certain number after March 31, with a stiff minimum fine of Rs 10,000. The old notes will have no value after December 30, 2016, so why should someone be penalised for holding notes that are simply junk or scraps of paper? To say it is being done to prevent people from exploiting poor labourers by giving them old notes doesn’t sound convincing at all. Ruling by ordinances is also disturbing, and has already earned the Narendra Modi government the label of “ordinance raj”. There is also a perception that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has no patience with the parliamentary process. In December 2015, his government issued seven ordinances in a fortnight, amending the land reforms law, allowing FDI in insurance, auctioning of coal blocks, among other things. Finance minister Arun Jaitley proudly claimed it would convince foreign investors the reforms wouldn’t be hit due to the chaos in Parliament, but it only exposed the government’s weakness, showing it couldn’t get the bills through the Rajya Sabha.

While there was only one ordinance this December, was it really necessary? The PM may be a man in a hurry, but it is certainly not a good practice for his government to bypass Parliament as his party doesn’t have a majority in the Rajya Sabha. What was the hurry to demonetise Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes without discussion in Parliament? Some of the 60-plus changes in rules the government was forced to make could have been avoided. It’s true tackling black money was among the BJP’s 2014 election promises, but did it manage to get any of the enormous amounts stashed overseas?

Contrast this with what’s happening in Europe. The 500-euro note is being demonetised from the end of 2018, but the public has been informed well over two years in advance. No secrecy, no “surgical strike”, though the objectives are the same: to check black money, counterfeiting and terror financing. But see the difference: while the 500-euro note will cease to be general tender, it will retain its value, and anyone can at any time go to a branch of the central bank to exchange it. So the “promise to pay the bearer” is not being repudiated.

The new ordinance is also a scary reminder of Indira Gandhi’s Emergency. If the BJP and government claim an ordinance was the only way as Parliament was stalled, it should remember it’s the duty of the government, not the Opposition, to ensure Parliament functions. The BJP pointed this out repeatedly while it was in Opposition in the decade-long UPA period. If this preference for ordinance raj continues, the Indian polity’s democratic structure will be considerably endangered.