Lagatar24 Desk
New Delhi, Dec 5: In response to a plea filed by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Ashwini Upadhyay demanding a standard banking code for foreign exchange transactions, the Delhi High Court on Monday served notice to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).
Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Subramonium Prasad’s division bench ruled that the case required a thorough hearing and instructed Upadhyay to give the RBI attorney the full set of papers.
The Central government’s Additional Solicitor General (ASG), Chetan Sharma, appeared today and stated that the matter is in fact quite serious and that the government will also submit a response within the next six weeks.
The case’s next hearing is scheduled on March 20, 2023.
The Court had given Center notice of the plea in April.
In Upadhyay’s PIL, he requested a directive to make sure that foreign currency is not deposited in Indian banks via the Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS), National Electronic Funds Transfer (NEFT), Instant Money Payment System (IMPS), and other comparable payment methods.
It was stated that if visa requirements for foreign nationals travelling from any country and using any airline were the same, then deposit information in banks for currency conversion operations also had to follow the same pattern.
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The petition further stated that this action was required to prevent foreign funds from being covertly transferred to the accounts of radical groups like SIMI, PFI, and Naxals as well as separatists, fundamentalists, terrorists, traitors, and naxals, maoists, and naxals.
Additionally, it was requested that whenever a foreign exchange transaction was made through an Indian bank, including branches of foreign banks in India, the name and number of depositors, names of the currencies, the precise amount of foreign currency, and the conversion rate, be included.
