2016: Top business groups, bad loans, demonetisation engaged SC

Legal issues concerning large conglomerates like Tatas, Birlas, Ambanis and Adanis hogged the limelight last year in the Supreme Court where Narendra Modi government faced the acid test on the legality of its path-breaking policy decision on demonetisation.

2016 also saw the swinging fortunes of some corporate czars like Mukesh Ambani, whose Reliance Jio cleared all roadblocks in the top court to offer voice services on its 4G spectrum, and liquor baron Vijay Mallya, who faced its wrath for fleeing the country.

Mallya's partner in promoting a Formula One team Subrata Roy, the embattled Sahara supremo, had better luck in the apex court which allowed him to come out of over two years of incarceration in the Tihar Jail to arrange around Rs 40,000 crore for refunding the investors.

Sahara was also in the news for the wrong reasons, along with the Aditya Birla Group, as they were accused by an NGO of allegedly paying bribes to top politicians including Modi, who was then the Chief Minister of Gujarat.

However, the top court, from the very beginning, questioned the credibility of the materials that formed the basis of the allegation, which the NGO claimed was based on documents recovered from the premises of the two business houses during the income tax raid in 2013 and 2014.

But, the fag end of the year saw the NDA government trying hard to defend the pre-midnight announcement of November 8, 2016 by the Prime Minister declaring cessation of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes as legal tender, as the Supreme Court asked a volley of searching questions over a period of time to push it for taking corrective measures to check the inconvenience faced by the people.

The government, which was initially struggling to justify its demonetisation decision, got a sigh of relief when the top court refused to interfere with it and referred the matter to a five-judge constitution bench to consider nine issues framed by a bench headed by Chief Justice T S Thakur.

Amidst these developments, Anil Ambani's Reliance ADA Group failed to defend in the top court the order of the Appellate Tribunal for Electricity allowing its Sasan Ultra Mega Power Project (UMPP) to recover Rs 1,050 crore worth of alleged dues from power distribution firms.