It may not exactly qualify as a Catch-22 situation. But Catch-25, a legacy of demonetisation, certainly comes close to Joseph Heller’s catch in terms of serving up an absurd situation.
While debates were raging over the pros and cons of the phasing out of currencies, numismatists were engaged in a discussion of a different sort. They felt that the demonetisation exercise was a call to duty for them: They needed to play the key role of collecting the more than 60 variants of the ₹500 note and the nearly 55 variants of the ₹1,000 note that were released by the Reserve Bank of India till November 8, 2016.
The Specified Bank Notes (Cessation of Liabilities) Act enacted following demonetisation, however, restricts the number of demonetised notes that one can possess for study, research or numismatic purposes to 25. Whoever is found to have in his or her possession more than 25 notes is liable to be fined up to ₹10,000, or five times the value of the note, or whichever is higher. For general purposes, the number of notes is restricted to 10.
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Among the variants in a currency could be the change of RBI Governor as the note carries his or her signature, or the colour changes introduced over a period of time. Variants also had Braille while security threads and security designs were changed from time to time. “Till 2006, the year of print was not on the note. The rupee logo was added in 2011 while the telescopic number was introduced in 2016,” a collector said on condition of anonymity.
Record for posterity
“Notes and coins help one understand the history and the progress of a nation. Collectors should be allowed to hold at least one note of each variant so that this history is preserved for posterity,” said Rajender Maru, Treasurer of the Indian chapter of the International Bank Note Society, which was established in 1961 to promote the study of bank notes and has chapters in 90 countries.
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Though this has been brought to the notice of the government nothing has been done so far.