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The Reserve Bank of India, India’s central banking authority, has denied any knowledge of the proposed ban on cryptocurrency by the Indian Government.
Varun Sethi, an Indian lawyer, filed a Right to Information (RTI) request with the Reserve Bank of India regarding the ban. The Banks responded by denying any communication in regards to the bill and also forwarded some of the questions to the Ministry of Finance. The RTI information was released on 4th June 2019.
According to a previous report, a Committee under the Finance Secretary, Shubash Chandra Garg, which was drafting the bill, “Banning of Cryptocurrencies and Regulation of Official Digital Currencies Bill 2019”, for regulating cryptocurrencies called for an outright ban.
The report was published by one of the leading publishing house, The Economics Times, which suggested that the Committee wants to completely prohibit the use of cryptocurrency under the Anti-Money Laundering laws. According to sources, the bill was supposed to be introduced before Indian lawmakers, the Parliament for voting. However, it was delayed due to General Elections during April and May 2019.
Recently, Bloomberg Quint also published a piece of similar news suggesting that the Indian Government might impose a ban on cryptocurrencies with jail for up to 10 years. However, the press release was met with significant criticism and evidently lacked authentic prove.
The Indian Government, under its’ favorite leader PM Narendra Modi, has taken significant steps in moving towards a digital economy. Moreover, the Central Bank officials and even the Finance Ministry has appreciated the potential of blockchain technology in transforming the system. Hence, a complete outright ban is highly tentative.
The Finance Ministry of India is also expected to answer multiple RTI requests filled with it regarding cryptocurrency and Bitcoin, including “What are ‘official digital currencies’ as per the RBI?” and their involvement in developing its cryptocurrency.
Source (https://coingape.com/reserve-bank-india-denies-knowledge-cryptoc-bill/)