As Country Awaits Supreme Court Decision, Indian Official Suggests A Ban on “Private Cryptocurrencies.”

By Rishma Banerjee

Shri Subhash Chandra Garg, secretary of the Department of Economic Affairs, has put forward the suggestion that India’s Finance Ministry impose a ban on “private cryptocurrencies.” As per a report published by the Indian government press centre on Oct. 31, it was proposed that the Financial Stability and Development Council (FSDC), which is headed by India’s finance minister Arun Jaitley “devise an appropriate legal framework to ban the use of private cryptocurrencies in India.” The council also held a meeting which was attended by senior government and financial regulation officials to discuss India’s current economic and financial situation and deliberate on the issue of whether to legalise cryptocurrencies.

Crypto Kanoon, a team of Indian lawyers who concern themselves with publishing content about crypto and blockchain regulation news, posted a quote from the press release and put forward some pertinent questions about whether the potential ban would extend to possessing digital currencies and trading.

This meeting comes shortly after the Supreme Court of India’s hearing which directed the Indian government to clarify it’s stance on the issue of crypto. The Supreme Court, which the apex court of the country has also given a mid-November deadline within which officials have been requested to state their position.

While, Bitcoin celebrated it’s 10th birthday, this Halloween and has seen wide acceptance from all around the world, India’s equation with it and other similar digital assets seem to as tumultuous as ever.

The crypto industry of the country is trying extremely hard to reverse a partial ban which has been going on for seven months now. This has been the scenario ever since the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) ordered local banks to terminate relations and operations with individuals or legal institutions partaking in crypto trade. Several crypto businesses responded to this by filing a complaint against the RBI, in the Supreme Court, which however has been honouring RBI’s ban, by postponing the hearings of the case. Recently, the first-ever crypto ATM of the country, established by Unocoin has also been declared illegal.

However, Garg has suggested the use of distributed ledger technologies (DLT), such as blockchain, should be encouraged. This is good news for the startups leveraging blockchain technology in India.