Mumbai man moves court as RBI refuses to exchange Rs 1 lakh worth demonetised notes

A Mumbai-based man has moved Bombay High Court after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) refused to exchange demonetised notes worth Rs 1 lakh. As the amount was in custody of the Mumbai police till March 22, the man, Matunga resident failed to exchange the currency before December 31, a media report said.

Sunil Mody, 47, has filed a writ petition seeking directions from the court against RBI to accept the old notes and exchange it with the new notes. He stated that he could not exchanged the old notes during the demonetisation period as the money was in police custody till March 22, as reported by The Indian Express. 

In the petition, Mody said that as the money was with Matunga police, therefore it was their duty to take "appropriate" steps to exchange the currency. The petition also mentioned that people were granted time till March 31 to deposit the demonetised currency and the December 31 deadline was "abrupt", the report said.

The central bank refused to accept his money saying that the exchange facility is available only to the Non-Resident Indians, the report added.

Moreover, as per the report, Mody was arrested by Matunga police in 2013 on the grounds of dispute with wife where he was charged for dowry harassment, criminal intimidation and causing hurt, among other charges. However, he was later released on bail and chargesheeted. 

That time, the police had seized Rs 1 lakh from Mody during the investigation. The amount was in Rs 500 and Rs 1000 denomination. Later, after his release, he had approached the trial court, demanding the return of the money in order to get it exchanged. The court had ordered the police to return the money. Matunga police returned the amount on March 22. 

Now, Mody has cited this as a special case. Along with the RBI, he also made Finance Ministry and the Matunga police as respondents, the report said.

The petition will next be heard on Monday.

In November, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced the ban on higher denomination currency, he had assured that the conversion of the old currency will be allowed till March 31, 2017 for Indians. But, later, the central bank kept the March 31 deadline only for the NRIs.

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The issue about the time limit for converting old currency notes is also being heard by the Supreme Court where Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi has reportedly submitted that the law will prevail over the words of the Prime Minister, as reported by PTI earlier.

Last week, when the same question on the deadline was raised, the RBI refused to answer the question under the Right to Information (RTI) Act claiming the query does not come under the definition of "information" as per the transparency law.