The Apex court of India heard limited arguments on Cryptocurrency’s validity in India from IAMAI and RBI before pushing the case to September 11 for the next and final hearing. According to sources, it was pushed because the other respondents on the case like SEBI have not filed their response yet. All the respondents must respond within 4 weeks time from now.
September 11 will be the day Supreme court takes the final decision on Cryptocurrencies’ future in India, if everything goes well. But if the arguments are longer or more complicated, the case can be extended with future hearing dates.
It was Siddharth Dalmia and Dwaipayan Bhowmick who initiated their respective court cases related to cryptocurrencies in India back in 2017. Dalmia wants to ban cryptocurrencies, Bhowmick wants the government to make their stance clear on Cryptocurrencies. The case got major attention when exchanges and individual traders from all over the country knocked the door of justice to fight RBI’s banking ban. All cases were combined into one and were scheduled to be heard today by a 3-Judge bench including the Chief Justice of India along with Justice A.M. Khanwilkar and Dr. Justice D.Y. Chandrachud.
After the Supreme Court denied to offer a stay order on RBI’s diktat on July 3 in the case of Internet and Mobile association of India (IAMAI) vs Reserve Bank of India, Indian exchanges have slowly shut down support for INR deposits and withdrawals and are resorting to newer methods to continue business. In a response to IAMAI’s representation sent to RBI, the central bank cited “investor protection” as the main reason behind the Banking ban according to several sources.
Today can be considered the first true hearing of the case – but according to CryptoKanoon, a platform engaged in crypto regulatory analysis, legal awareness and news, only the IAMAI and RBI were able to submit their limited arguments.
Senior advocate Mr. Gopal Subramaniam argued on behalf of IAMAI that in a world of digitalisation, such a circular from RBI would be a loss reported cryptokanoon on twitter.
Government has setup a committee headed by DEA secretary Mr. Subhash Chandra Garg to take a decision of regulation of cryptocurrency in India. It remains to see if the proposed regulations by the Garg committee are implemented before the hearing or the same gets pushed until the Supreme court verdict is out on Sep 11.
To end this on a different note, fact is that the Supreme court Judgement day is set on 9/11, the infamous date of the Twin Tower attacks in the USA.
What do you think the Supreme Court should do? Let us know in the comments below
Update: ‘Judgment’ remains the preferred spelling in British legal proceedings and appears more frequently in written work. However, in India the commonly used spelling is ‘Judgement’. So we have rectified that in the post.
