India has three million cryptocurrency users. These users were hit hard when the country’s central bank RBI i.e. Reserve Bank of India decided to close down the crypto exchanges. It did that by directing the Indian banks to close down the accounts of the crypto exchanges and its users.
The ban was to take effect within three months. The government was not comfortable with the cryptocurrencies from the beginning. But it didn’t take these drastic actions up until last April. The deadline is yet to be reached and yet crypto exchanges are not holding their breath.
They have dragged RBI to the country’s apex court. The Supreme Court of India is going to hear the case on 20th July. But before the case go into effect, looks like the RBI hasn’t done its homework before proposing the ban.
Everybody in the crypto community was asking what led to RBI’s crackdown in such a sudden manner. The motivations were not as clear. Also how were they backing this ban? Was there some research done or the decision was backed by an RBI panel.
They even didn’t considered the laws or research followed in other countries around the world. Nor did they take any other worthwhile options mentioned earlier. This means the ban was totally arbitrary in nature. The haphazardness of the action is flabbergasting.
The answer to these questions came out in the RBI’s reply to a Right to Information (RTI) filed by Varun Sethi. Mr. Sethi is a New Delhi based lawyer. He had filed this RTI in the April and received the reply by 9th of the May. He revealed the contents of the RBI by 12th June.
Mr Sethi said, “It seems as if the ban was arbitrary and it came into effect without any thought from the RBI. It has either answered in the negative or given conflicting answers to our questions asking what led to this ban”.
This RTI is bound to make the case against RBI much stronger. The country’s crypto exchanges are already dragging the RBI in the court. The Indian crypto watchers are watching these events unfolding with added curiosity now.