Amendments to Reserve Bank of India (Note Refund) Rules, 2009

The Central Government has made amendments to the Reserve Bank of India (Note Refund) Rules, 2009. The amended rules called “the Reserve Bank of India (Note Refund) Amendment Rules, 2018” are effective from Gazette notification date September 6, 2018. The amendment to rules would help the public to exchange mutilated notes in Mahatma Gandhi (New) series at bank branches and RBI offices, which are smaller in size compared to the earlier series.

Salient feature of exchange rules detailed in the amendments:

1. There is a change in the minimum area of the single largest undivided piece of the note required for payment of full value for notes of rupees fifty and above denominations. The words “one rupee, two rupee, five rupee, ten rupee and twenty” in the earlier rule 8 (a) in sub-rule (1)is substituted by the words “less than fifty rupees” in the amendment.
2. “if the claim of mutilated notes of rupees fifty and above denominations consist of a note composed of two pieces of the same note and the two pieces, individually have an area equal to or more than 40 percent of the total area of the note in that denomination, then the claim may be refunded for full value of the note.”;