The Delhi High Court has issued a notice to resume Unified Payment Interface (UPI) services on crypto exchange platforms. This notice was addressed to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), National Payments Corporation of India (NCPI), and State Bank of India (SBI), among others.
This was done in reference to a petition from those institutions that asked for suggestions on this ground.
The Bench was comprised of Justice DN Patel and Justice Jyoti Singh.
“The petitioner Arnav Gulati, a law student through Advocate Siddharth Acharya and Advocate Simarjeet Singh Satia states that “in March 2020, Supreme Court in the case of Internet and Mobile Association of India vs Reserve Bank of India passed the final order stating that RBI must allow the banking entities to allow the utilization of their funds in dealing with Virtual Currencies and struck down the impugned circular. And in May 2021, the National Payments Corporation of India clarifies that it shall not ban the UPI transfer system for dealing with Cryptocurrency exchanges.”
This means that the decision of SBI to stop UPI services on WazirX, India’s crypto exchange giant, was in violation of the Supreme Court Judgement of Internet and Mobile Association vs Reserve Bank of India on March 4th, 2020, which states that NPCI is not in the position to restrict or ban crypto transactions.
“The SBI has blocked and restricted the users and merchants to use the UPI deposits option on the crypto exchanges thereby leaving the users with no option but to use the other payment deposit options which takes more time to get completed and extra charges like convenience fees, GST charges or service charges are charged, which makes it difficult for the retail investors and users to get the funds on time.”