Rs 2000 currency note will remain legal tender after 30th September too. RBI expects that 4 month time is enough for people to exchange notes with the banks. Most of the Rs 2000 notes that are in circulation will return to banks within the given time frame of 30th September. This is a routine exercise of RBI and people need not panic
Read moreThe central bank has said it will withdraw ₹ 2,000 notes from circulation and people can exchange or deposit them in their bank accounts by September 30. The Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) 19 regional offices and other banks will start taking ₹ 2,000 notes for exchange with lower denomination one from May 23. They will remain legal tender, the RBI said.
The RBI has told all banks to stop issuing ₹ 2,000 notes immediately.
The RBI started printing the ₹ 2,000 note in November 2016 after Prime Minister Narendra Modi scrapped high-value ₹ 1,000 and ₹ 500 notes overnight.
"The objective of introducing ₹ 2,000 banknotes was met once banknotes in other denominations became available in adequate quantities. Therefore, printing of ₹ 2000 banknotes was stopped in 2018- 19," the RBI said in a statement.
"In order to ensure operational convenience and to avoid disruption of regular activities of bank branches, exchange of ₹ 2,000 banknotes into banknotes of other denominations can be made up to a limit of ₹ 20,000 at a time at any bank starting from May 23, 2023," the RBI said.
The central bank said people can deposit or exchange for lower denomination notes till September 30.
The central bank said this note is not commonly used for transactions. The RBI had undertaken a similar withdrawal of notes from circulation in 2013-2014.
Read moreSeveral vehicles are in flames in the centre of Milan in northern Italy after an explosion, the SkyTG24 news channel reported on Thursday.
Local police said a van had caught fire. No further details were immediately available.
SkyTG24 broadcast footage from the Milan's Porta Romana neighborhood, showing high plumes of black smoke and firefighters on the scene.
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New Delhi: The Supreme Court today said that it cannot disqualify the Eknath Shinde-led Maharashtra government and rejected the submission to reinstate Uddhav Thackeray as chief minister because the latter had chosen to resign instead of facing a test of strength in the assembly.
After the verdict, Uddhav Thackeray said that people who had left his party had no right to ask him questions, and if Eknath Shinde has any morality he should submit his resignation.
A five-member Constitution bench led by the Chief Justice of India, which had been hearing a batch of petitions filed by both the groups of the Shiv Sena from February this year, today ruled that the exercise of discretion by the then Maharashtra Governor BS Koshyari to conduct a Floor Test was not in accordance with the Constitution of India.
The whip has to be appointed by a political party, the court observed.
The Supreme Court referred its 2016 judgment in the Nabam Rebia case to a larger bench for judgment in the case of the defection of 16 MLAs in June 2022 from the then Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena.
The Thackeray faction had sought disqualification of the MLAs under the anti-defection law of the country.
The top court said that the Speaker must decide on disqualification petitions within a reasonable time.
The top court said there were no communications relied on by the Governor indicating that the dissatisfied MLAs wanted to withdraw support to the government. The Governor erred in relying on the resolution of a faction of MLAs of Shiv Sena to conclude that Uddhav Thackeray had lost the support of the majority of MLAs.
It stated that the status quo cannot be restored as Uddhav Thackeray did not face the Floor Test and tendered his resignation. Hence, the Governor was justified in administering the oath to Eknath Shinde with the support of the largest party BJP.
The Supreme Court said that a Floor Test cannot be used as a medium to settle inter and intra-party disputes.
The Nabam Rebia judgment had held that Speakers cannot issue disqualification notices when a notice seeking their removal is pending.
The Supreme Court also said the Speaker if he finds that the motion for his removal is not as per procedure, then he could proceed with the petitions seeking disqualification of the MLAs.
The top court held that the Speaker's decision to appoint Bharat Gogawale (Eknath Shinde) as the whip of the Shiv Sena party was illegal. The top court said that the Speaker should recognize only the whip appointed by the political party.
The judgment was delivered by a five-judge bench of Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and Justices MR Shah, Justice Krishna Murari, Justice Hima Kohli, and PS Narasimha.
The five-judge bench delivered the judgment on a batch of cross-petitions filed by Uddhav Thackeray and chief minister M Eknath Shinde factions on the Maharashtra political crisis.
The then-governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari's decision to invite Shinde to form the government along with the Bharatiya Janata Party after Thackeray chose to resign.
The court had earlier reserved the order after all the parties concluded their arguments.
Read moreNew Delhi/Amritsar:
Five people have been arrested by the Punjab police following an explosion near the Golden Temple in Amritsar late last night.
A low-intensity explosion occurred around 1 am today near Heritage Street in Amritsar. It is the third explosion that has happened in five days.
"Amritsar low-intensity explosion cases solved," the Director General of Punjab Police said.
The first explosion occurred on May 6, and the second on Monday. The site of the low-intensity blast that took place today, is nearly two kilometres from Heritage Street near the Golden Temple, a popular tourist spot in the city.
The National Investigation Agency (NIA) and the Punjab Police collected forensic samples from the site of the blast and are probing the incident.
Preliminary reports suggest that no triggering mechanism was used in the explosion, sources said.
The explosive used in the two blasts on Heritage Street in Amritsar were packed with two health drink cans.
One person was injured in the explosion that took place on Monday. No detonator was found, and the police said it appeared that the explosive used in the blast was kept in a container.
The police said the explosive was crudely made, and no shrapnel was used
One person was injured, and the glass facades of some buildings were damaged in the blast on May 6.
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