Your mutilated banknote is money still: RBI rules for currency exchange

As per RBI (Note Refund) Rules, 2009 no bank can decline to exchange the damaged, mutilated, taped or torn banknotes. Here're RBI rules for exchange you must know.

Soiled, mutilated or imperfect currency notes are not useless. Such notes can be exchanged by any bank branch or Reserve Bank of India (RBI) issue office on the condition that they are not fake.

Importantly, notes on which religious or political slogans are written cease to be legal tender and are not exchangeable. Branches of co-operative banks and regional rural banks (RRBs) are not eligible to exchange mutilated notes.

What is a soiled currency note?

• A currency note that gets stained because of continuous usage and a two-piece tape-pasted currency note that has all essential features intact. A note becomes soiled