KOCHI: Two businessmen on Tuesday approached the Kerala High Court seeking a directive to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to convert old notes worth Rs 20.50 lakh confiscated from them into new currency notes.
The petitioners - S P Mahesh and Manoj S Nair, of Jawahar Nagar, Thiruvananthapuram - were on their way to the bank on November 11, 2016, to remit the demonetised notes worth Rs 20,50,000 when the local police checked the car and confiscated the money.
Presuming it to be black money, the police registered a case and kept the money in a locker in the SBT Nanthancode branch. The police also informed the Income Tax (I-T) Department about the matter. The petitioners said the I-T Department verified the sources of money and certified the seized cash was from sources acceptable to the tax authorities.
The petitioner said the Sub-Divisional Magistrate (SDM), Thiruvananthapuram, had held there was no evidence of any financial crime and directed the authorities to release the amount to the petitioners.
The SDM also issued a letter to the Regional director, RBI, Thiruvananthapuram, asking to make necessary arrangements to convert the notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 denominations into new notes.
But, there was no response from the RBI. Hence, the petitioners approached the court seeking a directive to the RBI to comply with the order of Thiruvananthapuram SDM.