NEW DELHI: After tightening rules for depositing old 500 and 1000-rupee notes, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said on Monday evening that no questions will be asked if any amount of scrapped currency is deposited in one go but repeated deposits may raise queries.
With nearly Rs. 13 lakh crore out of the Rs. 15.4 lakh crore worth of 500 and 1000-rupee old notes already deposited in banks, the government has changed rules to mandate that individuals can deposit over Rs. 5,000 in old currency bills only once until December 30 and that too after explaining why it had not been done so far.
Explaining the rationale behind the move, Mr Jaitley said all exemptions to certain sectors and utilities, which had been allowed to accept the banned currency post demonetisation, ended last week and all those in possession of the old notes are supposed to deposit them with banks.
“Anyone who has old currency notes is not allowed to trade in them. He can only go and deposit them with banks,” he said.
With a view to curtail queues at banks, holders are encouraged to deposit the entire holding in one go, rather than going repeatedly.
