Lekha G –
Cryptocurrency exchanges to approach Supreme Court to seek direction on whether Reserve Bank of India (RBI) can direct banks to stop dealing with them despite an earlier order by Apex Court quashing the same.
The Supreme Court last year had quashed RBI’s order that banned all the financial institutions from providing services to cryptocurrency exchanges paving way to restart their operations.
However, RBI has again asked banks through an informal diktat to stop dealing with cryptocurrency exchanges.
Ashish Mehta, co-founder DigitX, a cryptocurrency exchange said, “Keeping this issue in mind and the impact on business activity, most of the major crypto exchanges are looking to knock the door of the Supreme Court again to get a clear-cut directive regarding banking services so that uninterrupted transaction services can be provided to the traders/investors.”
The co-founder and CEO of Unocoin Technologies, Sathvik Vishwanath extending support said, “Unocoin will also be a part of it as we believe in being a part of the entire industry rather just being a single company and we would participate in the case in spite we are not affected by the RBI or banks for time being.”
The exchanges contended that they were managing their business through payment processing companies like Paytm, who also withdrew their services on May 21, hence have collectively decided to approach the Court to seek clarity on the matter.