Delhi HC dismissed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) on 3rd July challenging RBI’s decision on withdrawing Rs2,000 notes.
A bench of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Subramonium Prasad rejected the plea filed by Rajneesh Bhaskar Gupta.
Table of Contents
PIL against RBI
A bench of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Subramonium Prasad had reserved its order on the PIL on May 30 after hearing the counsels for the petitioner and the RBI.
Petitioner Rajneesh Bhaskar Gupta has contended that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has no power to withdraw Rs2,000 currency notes from circulation and only the Centre could have taken a decision in this regard. In his petition, the petitioner submitted that the RBI has no independent power to direct the non-issue or discontinuance of issue of banknotes of any denominational values and this power is vested only with the Centre under section 24 (2) of the RBI Act, 1934.
The plea was opposed by the RBI which said it was only withdrawing Rs2,000 notes from circulation which was a “currency management exercise” and a matter of economic policy. “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,” the high court had said.
Earlier, the high court had dismissed the plea by lawyer Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay, which claimed notifications by the RBI and SBI enabling exchange of Rs2,000 banknotes without proof were arbitrary and against the laws enacted to curb corruption, saying it has been done to avoid inconvenience to citizens and the court cannot sit as an appellate authority on a policy decision.
“RBI has not cleared so far what is the benefit to the RBI or National Economy after withdrawing the denomination ₹2,000 banknote from circulation, however the hardship to the citizen of the country is very well known and seen during the demonetisation of denomination of ₹500 and ₹1,000 in the year 2016 and withdrawal of ₹2,000 is not much different from previous demonetisation,” the plea said. The plea was opposed by RBI which said it was only withdrawing ₹2,000 notes from circulation which was a “currency management exercise” and a matter of economic policy.
Encircling policy
On May 19, the RBI had announced withdrawal of Rs2,000 currency notes from circulation, and said existing notes in circulation can either be deposited in bank accounts or exchanged by September 30.
The bank notes in Rs2,000 denomination will continue to be a legal tender, the RBI said in a statement.
In order to ensure operational convenience and to avoid disruption of regular activities of bank branches, the RBI has said exchange of Rs2,000 bank notes into bank notes of other denominations can be made up to a limit of Rs20,000 at a time at any bank starting from May 23.
