Parl panel report critical of note ban could be tabled in winter session

A parliamentary panel's report on demonetisation, which is critical of the government's note-ban decision, is likely to be tabled in the next session of Parliament.

The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance, headed by Congress MP Veerappa Moily and of which former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is also member, had been looking into the issue of demonetisation.

The panel had also called RBI governor Urjit Patel and top officials of the Finance Ministry to deliberate upon the issue.

A draft of the report was prepared and circulated in previous tenure of the panel, but now the committee has been reconstituted so it will again be circulated, a member of the panel said on condition of anonymity.

The report is overall critical of the demonetisation decision and is set to be tabled in the next session of Parliament, another member said.

Some members of the panel had sought redrafting of the report as the RBI at that time had not provided some crucial details such as the quantum of the junked Rs 500 and 1,000 notes.

When contacted, Moily also confirmed that the report is likely to be placed in the winter session of Parliament.

The winter session is normally month-long and convenes from mid-November.

In an unprecedented move, the government on November 8 last year, banned old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes in an attempt to weed out black money in the country.

The old notes were allowed to be deposited in banks, with unusual deposits coming under income tax scrutiny. In its annual report for 2016-17, the RBI had disclosed that all but about 1 per cent of the scrapped currency notes have come back into the system.