Bombay High Court Directs RBI To Replace Maharashtra Resident's Demonetized Notes Worth ₹1.6L With New & Valid Currency

The division bench comprising Justice Gautam Patel and Justice Madhav Jamdar passed the order in the petition filed by Kishor Sohoni, who had deposited the said amount, in cash, with the police station, pursuant to Court orders, prior to demonetization.

After the Government of India Notification of 8th November 2016 which demonetized certain currency notes, the Petitioner said that he believed that since his cash was with an authority it was protected from demonetization.

However, when the Magistrate directed the Petitioner on 20th March 2017 to collect the money from the police station, he was handed the old currency notes, all by then demonetized.

The Court noted that according to the Finance Ministry's May 12, 2017 notification, a person is entitled to deposit or exchange for new, certain confiscated specified bank notes, returned by the court, however, subject to certain conditions.

In the petitioner – Kishor Sohoni's case - the only thing that was missing was an order of a Court directing the RBI to make that replacement.

"We exercise our equitable discretionary jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution of India to direct the RBI by this order to replace the currency tendered by the Petitioner with current valid tender, subject to the Petitioner complying with other requirements such as mentioning serial numbers etc."

After writing to the RBI in vain, Sohoni approached the High Court through Advocate Sadhna Singh.

In an "excellent" affidavit, as the bench put it, RBI put forth their case through Advocate Aditi Phatak. She cited that Finance Ministry's May 12, 2017 notification which said "in case confiscated specified bank notes are returned by the court to a person who is a party in case pending before that court, then, the person shall be entitled, on production of the direction of the court, to deposit or exchange such specified bank notes."

However, the RBI required a direction of the court in this regard.

The bench observed that there is an order of the JMFC-3, Kalyan directing the return of currency notes to the Petitioner but that order does not contain a direction to the RBI to replace the demonetized currency with valid tender. The court said there was no fault in the RBI's contention and passed an order in Sohoni's favour accordingly.

Case Title: Kishor Ramesh Sohoni Versus Union of India & Ors.

Citation: 2022 LiveLaw (Bom) 52

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