New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday junked a plea claiming that the RBI exchanged Rs 30 crore-worth defaced currency notes belonging to a Kashmir separatist group.
The matter came up before a bench comprising Justices Surya Kant and N Kotiswar Singh. “He appears to be a disgraced employee of a bank,” the bench told senior advocate Jaideep Gupta, appearing for the RBI.
The RBI said petitioner Satish Bhardwaj was fired from the RBI and he had suppressed the fact before the court. Gupta said there was no basis for his statement that an exchange of Rs.30 crores worth of defaced bank notes took place. The petitioner had sought a CBI probe into the Jammu Regional Branch of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) where defaced Indian currency was allegedly exchanged by a separatist group in 2013.
Citing a news report, the petitioner, who appeared in person, said that it is a reliable newspaper. The bench asked the petitioner, where had he disclosed that he was a dismissed employee of the bank.
“We have heard petitioner in-person and learned senior counsel for the Reserve Bank of India as well as learned Additional Solicitor General of India. We are not inclined to entertain this writ petition purportedly filed in the public interest. The same is, accordingly, dismissed. However, the issues, if so required to be adjudicated, shall be gone into in an appropriate case. All pending applications, if any, also stand disposed of”, said the bench, in its order.
