New Delhi: On Monday, the Delhi High Court dismissed a Public Interest Litigation that contested notifications from the Reserve Bank of India and State Bank of India that allow the exchange of Rs 2,000 banknotes without a requisition slip or identity proof.
The plea called that the decision was arbitrary, illogical, and in violation of Article 14 of the Indian Constitution, making it ineffective.
On Monday, the case was determined by the justices Satish Chander Sharma and Subramonium Prasad, who also opted to dismiss the appeal.
Earlier, Senior Advocate Parag Tripathi, representing the RBI, contested the plea and asserted that it is a statutory activity rather than a demonetisation.
Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay, a BJP leader and lawyer, filed the petition. He asked the RBI and SBI for instructions to make sure that Rs. 2000 banknotes are only deposited in their respective bank accounts so that people with black money and disproportionate assets could be easily identified.
In his arguments before the Court, the petitioner's attorney, Ashwini Upadhyay, made it clear that he was solely challenging the notification's provision that allowed for the exchange of money without identification verification.
The petition also pleaded for a directive to the Centre to take adequate action against disproportionate asset holders and black money in order to root out corruption and benami transactions and protect citizens' fundamental rights.
As per the RBI, the total value of rupee 2000 banknotes in circulation has decreased from 6.73 trillion rupees to 3.62 trillion rupees, of which 3.11 trillion rupees have either been reached or have been hoarded by separatists, terrorists, Maoists, drug smugglers, mining mafias, and corrupt individuals.
There are currently 142 billion people living in India, 30 billion families, and 130 billion of them have an AADHAAR card. Thus, every family possesses three to four AADHAAR cards. Similar to this, there are 225 crore accounts overall, 48 crore of which are Jana Dhan accounts for BPL families. It was stated that this means every family has a bank account.
"The Centre has declared that every family has an AADHAAR card and a bank account. Why then is RBI allowed to swap Rs. 2000 bills without requesting identification? It is also important to note that free grains are provided to 80 crore BPL families. It indicates that 80 billion Indians hardly ever utilise notes worth Rs. 2,000. As a result, the petitioner further requests instructions from the RBI and SBI on how to ensure that only bank accounts are used to deposit notes worth Rs. 2000.
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