The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is directed to ask Central Bank to defreeze Koinex’s bank account, holding little over 12 crore INR.
1/ Congratulations to the whole community on Supreme Court of India lifting ban on cryptocurrencies in India. We are too excited with this positive development! Matic Network has always been focussed on adoption of blockchain-based use cases in Indiahttps://t.co/oslk4gNdxn pic.twitter.com/5EtM3nKp8P — Matic (@maticnetwork) March 4, 2020
It has been reported that the court has asked to “set aside” the RBI circular of Banking ban released on April 6, 2018. This means that the circular is no longer valid.
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Image: twitter.com
However, the court says that the statement made while announcing the Monetary policy is not supposed to be set aside.
The court also says that it is not in the nature of the statutory direction.
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Image: twitter.com
It has been analyzed that earlier in 2018, the police had used Koinex exchange to sell off seized Bitcoin from Amit Bhardwaj and other gain bitcoin-related arrestees. The amount around 12 crores was then not allowed to be withdrawn from a frozen Central Bank account.
Likewise, the RBI has said that it has not directed the bank to freeze this account. The court said that RBI’s response was “lukewarm” and hence, RBI is obliged to direct the bank to defreeze the account and release the funds.
Thus, the court gives credit to advocate Ashim Sood for leading the attack on the “impugned circular”.