“What is the compulsion to change currency features frequently?”, Bombay HC asks RBI

The Bombay High Court on Thursday directed the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to file an affidavit explaining why frequent changes are made by it to the physical features of currency notes and coins..As per the order, the RBI is expected to reply within two weeks on the following queries posed by the Court, i.e..“… what is the compulsion of RBI to change features of notes from time to time? What is the compulsion of RBI to change the size of the notes?”.A Division Bench of Chief Justice Pradeep Nandrajog and Justice NM Jamdar passed the order on a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by the National Association of the Blind (NAB). In their plea, the NAB highlighted that new currency notes and coins issued by RBI are unidentifiable for visually impaired persons owing to a change in their physical features, including size..The petition seeks directions from the Court directing the central bank to take appropriate action under the Coinage Act, 1906 to withdraw coins that are not disabled-friendly and replace them with coins and currency notes with distinctive features..“New currency notes and coins cause difficulty for visually impaired persons to distinguish and identify different denominations due to frequent changes made in features,” argued Advocate Uday Warunjikar, appearing for NAB..Chief Justice Nandrajog observed that no other country in the world keeps modifying features of their currency every six months. He noted that it becomes difficult for specially abled people to keep up with such frequent changes made in size and other features and they cannot easily distinguish the denominations. He said,.“We want to know what is the compulsion of RBI to change the features such as size of the notes and coins from time to time.“.The petition had also asked directions from the Court asking the RBI to place on record what steps it intends to take for protecting the rights of visually impaired persons to have information about the currency notes..In March, this year, the RBI had submitted that it will come out with a mobile application to help visually-challenged persons to identify currency notes as cash while it remains a dominant mode of transaction..The RBI had also informed the Court that it had issued new currency with special features to help visually impaired persons identify them..The matter will be taken up next in three weeks..Image source unknown. .[Read Order]