gfiles magazine

December 17, 2016

Open secret

As per the Government, nobody had the clue about demonetisation. On November 8, a gazette notification was issued by the Department of Economic Affairs signed by Dr. Saurabh Garg,  which stated, “Whereas, the Central Board of Directors of the Reserve Bank of India (hereinafter referred to as the Board) has recommendedthat bank notes of denominations of the existing series of the value of five hundred rupees and one thousand rupees (hereinafter referred to as specified bank notes) shall cease to be legal tender; Para 4 of the Notification states that “Now, therefore, in exercise of the powers conferred by sub-section (2) of section 26 of the Reserve Bank of India Act, 1934 (2 of 1934) (hereinafter referred to as the said Act), the Central Government hereby declares that the specified bank notes shall cease to be legal tender with effect from the 9th November, 2016.” Clearly, the RBI had full knowledge about the demonetisation as its own Board had reportedly passed a resolution to that effect.  The RBI had not uploaded any such resolution on its website till the writing of this news. The RBI Board has 10 members. Apart from RBI Governor Urjit Patel and three Deputy Governors, Secretary (Economic Affairs) Shaktikanta Das and Secretary (Financial Services) Anjali Chib Duggal there are four other independent directors-banker-turned- economist Dr Nachiket M Mor, who has worked with Wipro of Azim Premji; Natarajan Chandrasekaran, who has been serving as the CEO and MD of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS); Bharat Narotam Doshi, Chairman of Mahindra Intertrade Limited; and Sudhir Mankad, who is Chairman of Gujarat Institute of Desert Ecology Bhuj, Indian Institute of Public Health, Gandhinagar and Vice President of Charutar Arogya Mandal, Karamsad. He is a member of Board of Governors of Navrachna University, Vadodara. He assists and advises Pratham, Gyanshala and America India Foundation in their work in the education sector in Gujarat. He is currently serving as a member of the Committee to formulate the New Education Policy. So, some eminent people knew about demonetisation well before it was announced. It would not be wrong to say it was an open secret.


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