Delhi HC Scraps Plea Challenging Notification Enabling Rs 2000 Exchange

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Monday rejected a petition challenging notifications by the RBI and the SBI enabling the exchange of Rs 2,000 currency notes without any requisition slip and ID proof.

A bench of Chief Justice Satish Kumar Sharma and Justice Subramonium Prasad rejected the plea, which challenged the notifications by the RBI and SBI enabling the exchange of Rs 2,000 banknotes without requisition slip and identity proof.

In his plea, the petitioner and advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay submitted that a large amount of currency has reached either an individual’s locker or has “been hoarded by separatists, terrorists, Maoists, drug smugglers, mining mafias and corrupt people”.

The plea claimed that the notifications by banks for the exchange of Rs 2000 currency notes were arbitrary, irrational and offended Article 14 of the Constitution.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) submitted before the High Court that its notification it is not demonetization but a statutory exercise.