State limit of cash account holder can withdraw: SC to government

The bench of Chief Justice T.S. Thakur, Justice A.M. Khanwilkar and D.Y. Chandrachud also asked the government to state if it could relax curbs on accepting deposits by the district cooperative banks.

New Delhi, Dec 9: The Supreme Court on Friday asked the government to state the threshold limit of cash that each account holder can withdraw from banks across the country without being refused.

The bench of Chief Justice T.S. Thakur, Justice A.M. Khanwilkar and D.Y. Chandrachud also asked the government to state if it could relax curbs on accepting deposits by the district cooperative banks after imposing certain conditions.

On cash withdrawals, the court asked the Centre to spell out the limit of cash an account holder can withdraw as it was told that though the government said each account holder can withdraw up to Rs 24,000 per week, the banks were instead giving them only Rs 8,000 to Rs 10,000.

Senior counsel Kapil Sibal, appearing for a petitioner, told the court that contrary to the government's claim, there was no cash in the banks.

Former Finance Minister and senior counsel P. Chidambaram told the court that all the Reserve Bank of India printing presses can print only 300 crore currency notes per month.

Replacing every demonetised note with a new note will take at least six months, Chidambaram told the court.

IANS