The Supreme Court of India, sought the government’s response on the plea of a Indian-origin woman, who holds a British passport, seeking to exchange scrapped currency notes, alleging that the RBI notification was discriminatory as it was limited to NRIs only.

Chief Justice J S Khehar and Justice D Y Chandrachud issued notice to the center and the RBI on the plea filed by Sangeeta Pandey, an overseas citizen of India card, who was turned down by the bank when she wanted to exchange Rs 18,000 worth scrapped notes.

According to reports, Sangeeta Pandey arrived New Delhi on January 10th from the UK with Rs. 18,000 worth of scrapped notes.

She then went to the RBI to get the currency exchanged, but was denied. She was told that the facility was not extended to OCI card holders and was only limited to NRIs.

"Petitioner went to RBI a few times and waited in queue until one day an RBI official made an announcement that the facility to exchange the currency was limited to NRIs only and did not include Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) card holders," the plea said.

"No satisfactory explanation was given except that the government had decided to take this decision," it added.

The plea sought quashing RBI’s December 31, 2016 notification, according to which exchange of demonetized notes was only made available to NRIs, who were not in India till December 30, 2016 post November 8.

As per the RBI direction, NRIs were allowed to exchange currency till June 30.

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