As per the offer up on eBay’s website, one can buy one stack of 100 new Re 1 currency notes for Rs 555, and another 100 leaves of Rs 10 at Rs 1,620.
Selling currency is not new and collectors have been auctioning their collections of old currencies for ages, but now along with old currency notes, new Indian currency notes are also being sold on e-shopping platforms. Currency notes of denominations 10, 50, 200 and 500 are being sold at a price higher than their face value. This has, however, raised questions about the legality or otherwise of such sales.
Online shopping platform e-Bay India has over 200 listings of old and new notes, ranging from Re 1 to Rs 500 on its platform. Vivek Pandey, member of the All India Bank Officers’ Association, said: “A currency can only be exchanged and not sold. Selling a currency violates Sections 22, 23, 24 and 26 of the Reserve Bank of India Act, 1934. Without the government’s permission, one cannot even destroy their own currency notes, leave alone selling them on e-shopping platforms.”
“Holding unique digit currency notes and selling them on e-portals at a higher price will have an adverse impact on the economy and therefore the government and RBI should work to prevent such practices. It is a kind of black marketing of currency notes and these websites are encouraging them,” Pandey added.
However, the RBI has no problem if someone sells currency that is of “numismatic value” on the e-portals. “These currencies are of numismatic value and trading them is neither legal nor illegal because the RBI has no clear guidelines or law in place on the issue,” a senior RBI official told this paper. The Sunday Guardian’s repeated attempts to get an official comment from the RBI failed.
As per the offer up on eBay’s website, one can buy one stack of 100 new Re 1 currency notes for Rs 555. Another 100 leaves of Rs 10 are being sold at Rs 1,620 and a stack of the brand new Rs 200 notes is available on the eBay website for Rs 26,000. The eBay charges between Rs 50-100 as home delivery cost.
The currencies that are up for sale on the e-platforms are being sold for some or other specific or unique reasons. Many of these notes have been put on offer, as their serial numbers end with digits like 786, which people of a particular religion consider “lucky”. Then, there are others, selling thousands of rupees, because the notes on offer by them are signed by a particular former RBI governor. It is not that people have not registered complaints earlier. Three years ago, an Indore-based lawyer had filed a public interest litigation (PIL) and, after hearing the PIL, the Madhya Pradesh High Court had slapped notices on online classifieds/trading portal e-Bay for providing a platform to speculators for selling Indian currency notes at a much higher price than their face value. The Sunday Guardian’s attempts to get comments from eBay India on the issue failed to get any response.