Currency refund rules

READY convertibility forms the essential basis of the free and unhampered circulation of paper currency in any country. Much more so is the case in a country like India where credit is an institution of comparatively slow growth. Any step which is designed or likely to shake in any manner and to any degree that fundamental belief is sure to threaten the huge fabric of credit that rests on it. It is principally for this reason that we question the expediency of the new changes that are proposed to be made in the Currency Notes Refund Rules. But this is not the only reason. Besides constituting a threat to public credit, the proposed changes are also calculated to causes serious inconvenience, not unoften accompanied by material loss, to the public in general and the mercantile community in particular. With the two-fold object of reducing to a minimum the chances of fraud and saving time and trouble to currency offices, changes are sought to be made in the existing rules which amount in effect to penalising the cutting up of currency notes. One new rule proposes to debar claims on half or mismatched notes of the denomination of Rs 5 and Rs 10, while claims on properly matched notes will be paid as hitherto and those on mutilated ones admitted if the portion presented is identified as genuine and is clearly more than half the note. The other new rule provides that half the value of notes of the denomination of Rs 50 or upwards will be paid at a currency office 14 days after the presentation of half such notes, if in the meantime no claim to full value is made on the basis of the other half, while claims to the full value of a note on the basis of a mere half will be treated as those on lost or wholly destroyed notes.