Following the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) recent decision to withdraw the ₹2,000 denomination banknotes from circulation, a public interest litigation (PIL) petition has been filed before the Delhi High Court to not allow the exchange of ₹2,000 banknotes without obtaining any requisition slip and identity proof.
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Advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay, in his petition, sought direction to ensure that ₹2,000 banknotes are “deposited in respective bank accounts only so that no one could deposit the money in others’ bank account”.
Terming the RBI’s May 19 notification and SBI’s May 20 notification, which permits the exchange of ₹2,000 banknotes without obtaining any requisition slip and identity proof, as “arbitrary, irrational”.
As per RBI, the ₹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 ₹500 and ₹1,000 banknotes in circulation at that time.
“About 89% of the ₹2,000 denomination banknotes were issued prior to March 2017 and are at the end of their estimated life-span of 4-5 years. The total value of these banknotes in circulation has declined from ₹6.73 lakh crore at its peak on March 31, 2018, (37.3% of notes in circulation) to ₹3.62 lakh crore constituting only 10.8% of notes in circulation on March 31, 2023,” the RBI has said.
Mr. Upadhyay said a large amount of the ₹2,000 denomination banknotes has reached either in lockers of individuals or has “been hoarded by the separatists, terrorists, Maoists, drug smugglers, mining mafias and corrupt people”.
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The plea further said, “Recently, it was announced by the Centre that every family has an Aadhaar card and a bank account. Therefore, why is RBI permitting the exchange of ₹2,000 banknotes without obtaining identity proof”.
“It is also necessary to state that 80 Crore BPL families receive free grains. It means 80 crore Indians rarely use ₹2,000 banknotes. Therefore, petitioner also seeks direction to RBI to ensure that ₹2,000 banknotes are deposited in bank account only,” the plea added.
On May 20, State Bank of India (SBI), in a communication to the chief general managers of all its local head offices, instructed that the facility of exchange of ₹2,000 denomination banknotes to all members of the public upto a limit of ₹20,000 at a time will be allowed without obtaining any requisition slip.
“Further, no identity proof is required to be submitted by the tenderer at the time of exchange,” the SBI communication stated.
