New Delhi [India], May 31 : An appeal was filed in the Supreme Court on Wednesday two days after the Delhi High Court dismissed a plea challenging RBI's decision permitting citizens to exchange Rs 2000 banknotes, which are being pulled out of circulation, without any requisition slip and ID proof.
Advocate Ashwini Upadhyay moved to Supreme Court, two days after the Delhi High Court dismissed his plea challenging RBI's decision permitting citizens to exchange Rs 2000 banknotes, which are being pulled out of circulation, without any requisition slip and ID proof.
Upadhyay moved the apex court against the May 29 order of the High Court which had dismissed his plea. On May 19, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) announced it will pull out the Rs 2,000 denomination from circulation as part of a "currency management exercise". The RBI has given citizens time till September 30 to exchange these notes with those of other denominations.
On May 20, the State Bank of India (SBI), too, instructed its local head offices that the facility of exchange of Rs 2,000 denomination banknotes to all members of the public up to a limit of Rs 20,000 at a time will be allowed without obtaining any requisition slip.
Seeking stay on RBI and SBI's notifications, the advocate said that it gives opportunity to legalise illegal money and hence contrary to the aims and objects of the Prevention of Corruption Act, Benami Transactions Act, Money Laundering Act, Lokpal and Lokayukta Act, CVC Act, Fugitive Economic Offenders Act and the Black Money Act.
"Therefore, Court may stay the notifications as far as they permit exchange of banknotes without requisition slip and identity proof," it has stated in its appeal before the top court.
The High Court dismissed Upadhyay'a plea saying, "This decision of the government is purely a policy decision and courts should not sit as an appellate authority over the decision taken by the government."
Upadhyay sought a direction to ensure that people deposit Rs 2,000 notes in their "respective bank accounts only so that no one could deposit the money in others' bank accounts".
"A large amount of notes of this denomination has either reached in lockers of individuals or been "hoarded by separatists, terrorists, Maoists, drug smugglers, mining mafias and corrupt people", he has said in his plea before the High Court.
The RBI has told the High Court that the withdrawal of Rs 2,000 notes is a "statutory exercise" and the decision to enable their exchange was taken for "operational convenience".
According to the RBI, the Rs 2,000 denomination banknote was introduced in November 2016 primarily to meet the currency requirement of the economy in an expeditious manner, after the withdrawal of the legal tender status of all Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 banknotes in circulation at that time.
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