Cash withdrawal limits back to pre-demonetisation era
mumbai — All limits on savings bank cash withdrawals post-demonetisation ended on Monday, as had been announced by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) last month.
In a two-stage process, the weekly withdrawal limit per account had been raised to Rs50,000, from Rs24,000, with effect from February 20, and all limits on ATM withdrawals were slated to cease from March 13.
The announcement had been made by RBI Deputy Governor R. Gandhi following the fiscal’s last monetary policy review announcement by the central bank in February, when it kept its key interest rate unchanged at 6.25 per cent, saying it awaited data on the full impact of the government’s demonetisation drive.
On January 30, the RBI had ended all curbs on withdrawals from Current Accounts, Cash Credit Accounts and Overdraft Accounts. The limits were placed following the November 8 demonetisation of Rs1,000 and Rs500 notes. The upper limit at ATMs was just Rs2,500 initially and was later raised to Rs4,500.
In January, the RBI had hiked the daily ATM withdrawal limit to Rs10,000 and doubled the weekly Current Account withdrawal limit to Rs100,000.
The upper limit for weekly withdrawal from bank accounts had been raised to Rs24,000 from Rs20,000 in November.
While lifting of ATM withdrawal limits represents coming full circle for these machines in respect of demonetisation, the return to normalcy in terms of cash available in them is still awaited, indicating the slow pace of remonetisation.
Last Friday, the central government told the Supreme Court that holding scrapped currency notes of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 after the deadline of December 31 is “illegal”.
Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for the Centre, made the submission before the bench of Chief Justice J.S. Khehar, Justice D.Y. Chandrachud and Justice S.K. Kaul that government will contest petitions against the demonetisation ordinance.
Rohatgi opposed a batch of pleas seeking order to the government to allow individuals and companies to deposit their scrapped currency notes without any prejudice.
The counsel appearing for the petitioners urged the court that no action should be taken against them for possessing the banned currency notes. Posting the matter for March 21, the bench said: “If required, we will extend the date.”
The court was hearing a batch of PILs alleging that people are not being allowed to deposit the demonetised notes till March 31, as promised by the government.
The petitions alleged that the government was breaching the promises made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi made on November 8, 2016, while declaring that the high-value currency notes were “legally not valid”.
“Prime Minister’s speech and the subsequent notification on demonetisation had assured that a person shall be able to deposit the notes in special circumstances till March 31, 2017, but in its Ordinance in December 2016, the government has failed to mention it,” one of the petitioners told the bench. —