Congress seeks public release of RBI's Nov 8 meeting minutes, Cabinet note

Congress leader P Chidambaram said people had the right to know how the Nov 8 decision was taken

The Congress on Friday reiterated its demand for making public the minutes of a meeting of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Board on November 8-- hours before the Prime Minister announced the demonetisation-- as well as the Union Cabinet note of that day.

"We demand that the minutes and agenda of the meeting of the RBI Board as well as the Cabinet note of November 8 should be made public. The people have the right to know as to how things transpired on that day," senior Congress leader and former Finance Minister P Chidambaram said.

Dubbing demonetisation a decision taken "without consulting key officials", Chidambaram said everything worked "as per the set script" wherein all the players had pre-defined roles.

"As far as I know, the RBI Board met around 5.30 p.m. on November 8. The Board has 14 members, but 10 positions are vacant. Only three members attended the meeting that lasted barely half an hour," he said.

"Now, in those 30 minutes, how the three wise men decided to scrap 86 per cent of the country's currency is something that should be in the public domain. We demand, and the RBI has an obligation, to disclose the agenda and the minutes of that meeting," the senior Congress leader added.

"The RBI Board, within half an hour, sent its recommendation to scrap the old notes to the Cabinet, which was waiting. So everything was working according to a script and everyone had his role defined," he said.