New Delhi:The Supreme Court on Wednesday set aside the complete ban on cryptocurrency imposed by the Reserve Bank of India.
The RBI had decided to ban banks from providing services to people or businesses dealing with cryptocurrencies.
The SC has held the move of the RBI as ‘disappropriate’ and ‘unreasonable’.
The case was heard by three judge bench comrpising Justice RF Nariman, Aniruddha Bose and V Ramasubramanian.
The 2018 circular of the RBI had stated that the entities regulated by the RBI are prohibited from providing any service in relation to virtual currencies, including those of transfer or receipt of money in accounts relating to the purchase or sale of virtual currencies.
The petition, filed by the Internet and Mobile Association of India, said the RBI had banned cryptocurrencies on moral grounds since no prior studies were conducted to analyse the effect of these virtual currencies on the economy. It has stated that a blanket ban was “arbitrary, unfair and unconstitutional”.
RBI, in its response, had stated that it had not directly banned virtual currencies and that the ban was only applicable to regulated entities under the RBI.
