You won't be jailed, but 'heavily penalised' for holding demonetised notes after March 31

Against what was being expected, keeping demonetised notes will not land you in jail, as per a PTI report. Government officials have clarified that the minimum fine for holding old notes beyond March 31 will be Rs 10,000.

Earlier, the government had approved an ordinance to amend the RBI Act with an aim to extinguish the liability of the government and the central bank on the demonetised high-denomination notes to prevent future litigations.

The government order stated that penalty for holding scraped notes in excess of 10 notes may attract fines and a jail term of up to four years.

However, the details of the ordinance that amends the RBI Act and completes the demonetisation exercise will be released when it receives presidential assent.

It is clear that the old notes can be deposited in banks until December 30. The ordinance is expected to provide a limited window for depositing the cancelled notes at select RBI branches until March 31 and also prescribes a monetary penalty for anyone holding such currency in large quantities after this deadline.

Of the Rs 15.4 lakh crore of currency that was scrapped, about Rs 14 lakh crore is estimated to have already been deposited in banks or exchanged.