The Maharashtra Congress on Monday rooted a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPCP probe into the alleged scam involving the disappearance of Rs.88,000 crore worth currency notes of the denomination of Rs 500 from the government printing presses.
Talking to media persons at Tilak Bhavan here, Maharashtra Congress president Nana Patole said: “The BJP’s claim that there is no stain of corruption on it is false. The truth is that the Modi government is completely mired in corruption”.
A major scam that took place in the year 2016-17, has come to light now. As many 8810.65 million new notes of Rs 500 were printed but only 7250 million notes reached the RBI. This means 176 crore notes worth Rs 88000 crore have disappeared. We would like to know who has cornered this huge amount of money,” he said.
“Currency notes are printed in the government printing press at Nashik, Dewas and Bengaluru. The government printing presses at Nashik and Dewas come under the jurisdiction of the Union Ministry of Finance. The procedure is that newly printed notes go directly from the government printing press to the Reserve Bank Of India (RBI) and are later circulated in the market,” Patole asked.
“So how did these new Rs 88,000 crore worth notes of the denomination of Rs 500 notes disappear? There has been a scam in the printing of new 500 rupees notes and currency notes worth Rs 88,000 crores are missing. Where did they go? This is a serious question,” Patole said.
“Rahul Gandhi has already warned that demonetisation is the biggest scam in the country. After the announcement of demonetisation, old notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 were deposited in the RBI. A total of 1660 crore notes were in circulation but when these old notes were deposited in the RBI, there was an excess of 2 lakh crore notes,” the state congresss chief said.
“After demonetisation, new notes were introduced. How many of these new notes were printed? How many of these notes reached the Reserve Bank? Along with this, the scam of old notes should also be investigated,” Patole said as he rooted for a JPC probe into the missing currency notes scam.