The Indian Supreme Court has decided to delay its full hearing of a high profile case against the reserve bank of India’s (RBI) ban on bank’s dealings with crypto-related businesses. Kashif Raza, who is the founder of Indian crypto regulatory news and analysis platform Crypto Kanoon, said that the delay of the case is a big blow to the country’s crypto community.
Indian crypto exchanges have had to deal with a crippling embargo since the Indian Central Bank decided to ban bank’s dealings with crypto businesses back in April 2018. When this ban officially went into effect in July of 2018, the country’s main bank has had to deal with waves of protest from both public and industry figures. These protests came in the way of petitions that maintained that the bans were unconstitutional.
Raza said that the latest case presented by the Internet and Mobile association of India (IAMAI). IAMAI is a not for profit institution that communicates with the government on behalf of internet industry consumers, shareholders, and investors. Raza interpreted the courts action to put the case of for the moment as a positive step.
“Today RBI was supposed to reply to the representation filed by IAMAI. It seems that the Supreme Court of India today passed over the matter primarily because the court expects there to be longer arguments in this case, which could take their entire week. They gave it a pass so as to allow in future for a full-fledged hearing of the arguments, to listen to both parties. So interesting times ahead.”
He doubled down on his positivity on the Crypto Kanoon Telegram account;
“The best part is that the court is willing to hear the matter, the court has not adjourned the matter, it has only passed over it I think it’s a very good sign, the court is willing to give both sides a fair chance to present their arguments cheer up!”
The adverse crypto climate in the area has forced crypto exchanges to either transform their business or fold altogether. Exchanges like Coindelta were forced to close shop while others like WazirX were forced to change into P2P platforms to avoid in-house crypto-fiat conversion. There might be even more challenges ahead since a draft bill titled “Banning of Cryptocurrency & Regulation of Official Digital Currencies”, is reportedly being crafted. This bill intends to not only blanket ban cryptos in the country but also introduce a “Digital Rupee” to be issued by the Reserve Bank of India.
