Supreme Court of India has refused to admit the petition from IAMAI's (Internet & Mobile Association Of India) application requesting a stay on RBI's circular dated 6th April, 2018. It has also barred all courts in India from accepting any new petitions against RBI on this matter.
The next court hearing date has been set on the 20th of July. This is rather unfortunate but we're likely to see Supreme Court favouring the government on this matter. I have my fingers crossed. No new applications can be filed against the RBI as Supreme won't allow it given that there are many pending matters in the court already.
What if the banks go against RBI's ruling?
They can't and certainly not without facing a strict penalty. Recently, RBI imposed monetary penalty of 5 Crores ($734,500 approx) on South Indian Bank Limited for not following it's directive. While this may not be directly cryptocurrency related, it is an indication of what RBI can do legally if the banks rendering services to cryptocurrency exchanges do not stop their services by the 5th of July.
Even as BTC rallied today, prices in India are lagging behind. This has become the new normal now. With RBI's mandate going into effect from 5th of July there is a lot of selling pressure and fewer demand. This was although expected given the current situation.
There's a looming uncertainty about our favourite cryptocurrency exchanges will loose banking access. Probably around the 5th of July is the hearsay. It would've been great if some of our exchanges in India would register abroad and start p2p services. This would make it so much simpler for people to trade in and out of cryptocurrencies. But it's unlikely many will go this way.
Exchanges such as Unocoin and Zebpay are seeing the potential of growth in SE.Asian markets and have moved their HQs to Singapore. This will allow them to setup up trading in other markets outside of India. Perhaps when regulations fall in place or Supreme Court lifts banking services ban on crypto-exchanges in India we'll see many of these exchanges coming back to render services.
Ofcourse, for all we know the ruling may be favourable towards exchanges but given the huge lobby against cryptocurrencies from the government and uncertainty over the knowledge of presiding judges in Supreme Court on cryptocurrencies, decentralisation and blockchain technology, I'm not expecting a lot here!
This is what I feel about banks off late.
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