National Herald: New Delhi: Sunday, July 01, 2018.
A staggering
amount of ₹23,465 crore seems to have disappeared between security presses and
the RBI, if RTI replies are to be believed, but the Bombay HC dismissed Manoranjan
Roy’s PIL
Ridiculed in
the Bombay High Court and even after being mocked by officials, the unassuming
activist from Mumbai refuses to give up his mission. Three months after Bombay
High Court dismissed his PIL, late in June Manoranjan S Roy filed an appeal in
the Supreme Court for a probe into what he believes is of utmost public
interest.The Bombay High Court thought otherwise. The PIL had pointed to large
quantities of “missing or excess” Indian currency notes, purchase of gold by
Government of India and sale of old currency note printing machines, all based
on RTI replies received by Roy from authorities. But the high court told Roy,
“there is no public interest involved in the matter”.He was repeatedly rebuked
by judges in the high court. “What’s your interest in this PIL” they asked. The
question would be repeated by officials outside the courtroom.
Roy questions
if the High Court was justified in dismissing the petition on the ground that
it related to demonetised notes of ₹500 and ₹1000 denomination
He had filed
the PIL in the High Court in 2015. When the petition came up for hearing in
January 2016, Bombay High Court rapped the RTI activist for dragging Prime
Minister Narendra Modi into the PIL. “He is the Prime Minister of the country.
Not some leader of the Congress party or the BJP,” Justice Kanade told him,
asking him to deposit a punitive amount of ₹10 lakh to prove his bone fide
before his petition could be heard.
Though the court later relented, it ordered
the names of the Prime Minister, the Finance Minister and the Ministry of Home
Affairs as parties to be dropped. It also asked him to deposit an amount of one
lakh Rupees.
Justice VM Kanade and Justice Swapna S Joshi dismissed the petition
on August 23, 2016. On September 22, 2016, Roy again filed a Review Petition.
In November, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced demonetisation of ₹500 and
₹1,000 denominations rendering 86% of the currency in circulation invalid.
On
February 26, 2018, citing demonetisation, the court again dismissed the petition,
holding that ₹500 and ₹1000 had been demonetised and the relief sought in the
PIL had turned infructuous. Roy’s PIL was based on figures provided by the
three currency printing presses.
- While the printing presses informed Roy that 19,45,40,00,000 pieces of ₹500 denomination currency notes were sent to RBI, in its reply to Roy, said it had received only 18,98,46,84,000 pieces. This amounted to a shortfall of 46,93,16,000 pieces, valued at a whopping ₹23,465 crore.
- While in response to Roy’s RTI application, the printing presses said they had sent 4,44,13,00,000 pieces of ₹1000 denomination to the RBI, the Reserve Bank of India admitted receiving more: 4,45,30,00,000 pieces: An excess of 1,17,00,000 pieces valued at ₹1,170 crore.
Another RTI data for 2000-2011,
from the Bharatiya Reserve Bank Note Mudran Pvt. Ltd. said it had sent
13,35,60,00,000 pieces of ₹500 denomination and 3,35,48,60,000 pieces of ₹1,000
denomination, but, mysteriously, the RBI apparently never received these
currency notes, nor did it disclose details of the same.
The discrepancy in the
number of currency notes claimed to have been dispatched by the three currency
printing presses in Nashik, Dewas and Mysuru and the number admitted to have
been received by the RBI, says Roy, calls for an investigation.
Roy questions if
the High Court was justified in dismissing the petition on the ground that it
related to demonetised notes of ₹500 and ₹1000 denomination. His interest is to
plug the loopholes and strengthen the economy, he claims.
Referring to RTI
replies, he states that at least 10 colour offset machines were sold to three
different firms namely (1) M/s Flexible Packing Industries, Ambad, Nashik. (2)
M/s Anupan Impressions, Amrawal, and (3) M/s. Prabhakar Brothers, Nagpur, under
only onetender i.e tender No. 20/95 dated 06/06/1995. But then how were 16
offset colour machines sold for ₹12,49,800, he asks.
Roy’s plea also raises
several queries such as total number of currency notes in circulation and
whether RBI destroys the mutilated notes and re-prints the same series of new
notes. In his petition he indicated possibilities of duplication of notes
printed by the security presses, citing examples of different series of notes
and their year of printing.
“Modi government’s demonetisation move was made on
the grounds of unearthing black money and fighting terrorism, but the issue of
misappropriation of large quantities of Indian currency notes, as available
under my RTI applications, was completely ignored by the Bombay High Court,”
Roy says in his petition.
“I had sought information from the RBI under RTI act
about total number of Indian currency notes in circulation abroad besides the
countries which are not accepting Indian currency notes. In its reply the RBI
said it doesn’t have any such information in its records,” he informs
The writer is
a Senior Correspondent with National Herald
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