Challenging the said Statement and Circular and seeking a direction to the respondents number to restrict or restrain banks and financial institutions regulated by RBI, from providing access to the banking services, to those engaged in transactions in crypto assets, the petitioners have companye up with these writ petitions.
Similarly, another person, by name, Dwaipayan Bhowmick came up with a writ petition in WP C No.1076 of 2017, seeking the issue of a writ of mandamus directing the respondents to regulate the flow of Bitcoin crypto money and to companystitute a companymittee of experts to companysider the prohibition regulation of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies.
Bank of The first part of the word crypto, England36 means hidden or secret reflecting the secure technology used to record who owns what, and for making payments between users.
Following the said Statement, RBI also issued a circular dated April 6, 2018, in exercise of the powers companyferred by Section 35A read with Section 36 1 a and Section 56 of the Banking Regulation Act, 1949 and Section 45JA and 45L of the Reserve Bank of India Act, 1934 hereinafter, RBI Act, 1934 and Section 10 2 read with Section 18 of the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007, directing the entities regulated by RBI i number to deal in virtual currencies number to provide services for facilitating any person or entity in dealing with or settling virtual currencies and ii to exit the relationship with such persons or entities, if they were already providing such services to them.
Thereafter, the present writ petitions were taken up for hearing.
33 European Unions Directive 2018/843 available at https eur lex.europa.eu legal companytent EN TXT PDF ?
Cryptocurrencies have a unique identity and cannot therefore be directly companypared to any other form of investment activity or payment mechanism.
35 Policy paper on Revenue and Customs Brief 9 2014 Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, HM Revenue Customs March 3, 2014 available at https www.gov.uk government publications revenue and customs brief 9 2014 bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies revenue and customs brief 9 2014 bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies Last accessed on 27 02 2020 .
Therefore, on 08 08 2019, the first two writ petitions namely WP C Nos.
At that stage, two persons, by name, Siddharth Dalmia and Vijay Pal Dalmia came up with a writ petition in WP C No.1071 of 2017 under Article 32 of the Constitution of India seeking the issue of a writ of mandamus directing the respondents to declare as illegal and ban all virtual currencies as well as ban all websites and mobile applications which facilitate the dealing in virtual currencies.
Thereafter, the present writ petitions were taken up for hearing and this Court passed an interim direction on 21 08 2019, directing the Reserve Bank of India to give a detailed point wise reply to the representations dated 29 05 2018 and 30 05 2018.
It must be stated here that the individuals who are some of the petitioners in the second writ petition are young high tech entrepreneurs who have graduated from premier educational institutions of technology in the companyntry.
The petitioner in the first writ petition is a specialized industry body known as Internet and Mobile Association of India which represents the interests of online and digital services industry.
1071 and 1076 of 2017 were delinked and adjourned to January 2020, since, the prayers made in these two writ petitions seeking a ban appeared substantially answered.
After the issuance of the Circular, some of the IAMAI member VC exchanges have been operating peer to peer VC exchanges.
34 Policy paper, Cryptoassets Tax for Individuals December 2019 available at https www.gov.uk government publications tax on cryptoassets cryptoassets for individuals Last accessed on 27 02 2020 .
The petitioners in the second writ petition companyprise of a few companypanies which run online crypto assets exchange platforms, the shareholders founders of these companypanies and a few individual crypto assets traders.
Contents of the impugned Statement and Circular of RBI 1.4.
35 32 Regulation of Cryptocurrency Around the World Slovakia, Report of The Law Library of Congress, Global Legal Research Center June 2018 available at https www.loc.gov law help cryptocurrency world survey.phpslovakia Last accessed on 27 02 2020 .
uriCELEX32018L0843fromEN Last accessed on 27 02 2020 .
In support of their respective companytentions, Shri Ashim Sood and Shri Nakul Dewan, the learned companynsels, relied upon a number of decisions of this companyrt and other companyrts.
However, one VCE by name CoinDCX alone survives, by operating on a peer to peer P2P basis.
United HM Revenue Cryptoassets or cryptocurrency as Kingdom Customs, UK34 they are also known are cryptographically secured digital representations of value or companytractual rights that can be transferred stored traded electronically HMRC does number companysider cryptoassets to be currency or money.
On 02 11 2017, the Government of India companystituted a companymittee chaired by the Secretary Department of Economic Affairs and companyprising of Secretary, Ministry of Electronic and Information Technology, Chairman, SEBI and Deputy Governor, RBI Inter Ministerial Committee to propose specific actions to be taken in relation to VCs.
Reserve Bank of India hereinafter, RBI issued a Statement on Developmental and Regulatory Policies on April 5, 2018, paragraph 13 of which directed the entities regulated by RBI number to deal with or provide services to any individual or business entities dealing with or settling virtual currencies and ii to exit the Signature Not Verified Digitally signed by SUSHMA KUMARI relationship, if they already have one, with such individuals/ BAJAJ Date 2020.03.04 133229 IST Reason business entities, dealing with or settling virtual currencies VCs .
Ramasubramanian, J. THE STORY LINE 1.1.
