SC gives Centre final chance to respond on defaced currency in J-K

The Supreme Court on Friday granted a last opportunity to the Centre to file its response on a PIL seeking CBI probe into the RBI exchanging defaced currency notes worth Rs 30 crore allegedly belonging to a Kashmiri separatist group.

While noting enough time had been given to the Union of India to file its reply, a bench of Justices Surya Kant and Ujjal Bhuyan granted four more weeks "in the interest of justice".

The top court was hearing a PIL filed by one Satish Bhardwaj, who alleged in 2013 the Jammu branch of RBI exchanged the currency notes amounting to Rs 30 crore allegedly belonging to a separatist group called "Kashmir Graffitti".

Bhardwaj's plea said, "The act of the Jammu branch of Reserve Bank of India to exchange the defaced/imperfect Indian currency notes worth Rs 30 crore -- that too done by a separatist group of Kashmir with the main aim of destabilising peace and harmony in the region of Jammu and Kashmir and to create an environment of tension and terror in the minds of common residents of the region -- is illegal and worth the interference of this court."  He said a separatist group in Kashmir in its statement on Facebook claimed to have stamped separatist slogans on Indian currency worth Rs 30 crore between May and August in 2013.

Bhardwaj, therefore, sought a court-monitored CBI investigation in the case, arguing exchange of currency notes can only be done according to law and no deliberately stamped currency be exchanged as per the rules and regulations of RBI.