2017-07-17 Mon

Several “Persons of Indian Origin” (PIOs) are not able to exchange banned notes as (Overseas Citizen of India) OCIs are being treated like NRIs. Only NRIs not present in India between 9th November and 30th December 2016 were allowed to exchange their old currency notes until 30th June 2017.

On 7th June 2017, three residents from Gujarat were arrested for having banned notes under Section 7 of the Specified Bank Notes (Cessation of Liabilities) Act, 2017. According to this act, having more than 10 pieces of old Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes will result in a fine of Rs 10,000 or 5 times the cash held, whichever is higher. Innocent PIOs might have to face a lot of trouble because of this Act. Apart from that, no suit or legal proceeding can be performed against the government or RBI.

There have been instances where an OCI was not allowed to exchange demonetised money has he was not an Indian citizen. Only NRIs holding Indian passports are allowed to get their notes exchanged. Several complaints have been raised but there has been no positive response.

There were expectations that Prime Minister Narendra Modi would talk on this issue during his visit to the United States, but that wasn’t the case.