Citizens' Accountability LedgerWho owned the mess? 25 years, every party, on the record

Case 27 · Economic shock

Demonetisation. Savings voided overnight

08 Nov 2016

No one answered for it

3,567 days since Nobody has been held to account.

Human cost Est
Cash-wage workers, farmers and traders across the country; 100+ deaths reported in queues and in the distress that followed
Financial cost Est
~₹1.5 to 2 lakh cr est. output loss; 99.3% of the banned notes came back to the RBI

What happened

₹500 and ₹1,000 notes, about 86 percent of cash in circulation, were voided with four hours of notice to kill black money, counterfeits and terror funding.

How it unfolded

  1. 8 Nov 2016

    ₹500 and ₹1,000 notes, about 86 per cent of the cash in circulation, are voided with four hours of notice, to kill black money, counterfeits and terror funding.

  2. Nov to Dec 2016

    The cash-poor queue for weeks. The stated aim shifts from black money to digitisation once the first claim starts to look unsupportable.

  3. Aug 2018

    The RBI reports that almost all of the voided cash came back, so almost no unaccounted wealth was destroyed.

  4. 2018 onward

    Nobody resigns. No review admits error. The suffering was inflicted on the cash-poor; the reckoning was inflicted on nobody.

Dates are as the record states them, which is sometimes a month or a year rather than a day. Entries marked in red are the ones where nothing happened next.

Claim against record

What the government said

The government maintains it widened the tax base and accelerated digital payments.

What the record shows

No one answered for it

The RBI later reported almost all the cash returned, so almost no unaccounted wealth was destroyed. No one resigned. No review admitted error. The stated aim simply shifted from black money to digitisation once the first claim collapsed. The suffering was inflicted on the cash-poor; the reckoning was inflicted on nobody.

What accountability should have looked like

An honest cost-benefit review against the original goals, and a hunt for black money where it actually sits, in benami property, shell firms and opaque political funding, not in a daily-wager's pocket.

Ministers and office-holders responsible

Naming who held the portfolio is a matter of public record. It is not by itself a finding of personal responsibility for any death or any rupee.

Sources

T1 primary record · T2 reporting · T3 partisan

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Cite or export this case

Citizens' Accountability Ledger, "Demonetisation. Savings voided overnight" (08 Nov 2016), case-2. https://whoisresponsible.xyz/case/case-2/

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