Two days after the Reserve Bank of India introduced “high security” notes of high denominations, a farmer in Chikkamagaluru district of Karnataka was cheated by a “fake” Rs 2,000 note on Saturday.
Ashok Kumar, a farmer in Chikkamagaluru, had brought onions to the APMC market in the town. An unknown person who purchased onion from him, gave him a Rs. 2,000 note and said it was a new note and valid.
However, when Ashok showed it to some of his friends, they found the note was only a photocopy of the original currency note and was trimmed at the edges.
Ashok has sworn not to touch the new currency for some months until it is commonly available with everyone.
Ashok said that he was not at the stall when the incident occurred at around 7.30 am. His sons attended to a customer who handed them the note to pay for 30 kg onions, The News Minute reported.
A case under section 420 of the IPC has been registered at the Chikkamagaluru town police station.
“It was a photocopy of the original note. It is poorly photocopied, anybody can notice it easily. The person was given the copy by an unknown person in APMC market," The Hindu quoted Superintendent of Police K. Annamalai.
Ashok said neither he nor his sons had seen the new Rs 2,000 note until then so they assumed it was an original note.
“We found it was fake later, when a friend who had got the new note from the bank compared his note with mine. While the difference was obvious, it was difficult for a person who was seeing it for the first time to notice,” he said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced on November 8 that Rs 500 and Rs 1000 note would no longer be valid from midnight and instead new Rs 500 and Rs 2000 notes would be issued.
The Rs 2,000 notes, which are being introduced for the first time, will be of magenta colour with Mangalayan imprinted on the reverse side. The higher value currency notes will have other designs, geometric patterns aligning with the overall colour scheme both on the obverse and reverse.
The new 2,000 rupee note, said the Reserve Bank or RBI in a statement, will include several features like a see-through register with the denominational numeral 2,000 which can be seen when the note is held up against light, which will make it harder to fake.
There will also be a latent image with the denominational numeral 2,000, which can be seen when the bank note is held at a 45 degree angle at the eye level.
"The new denomination has motif of the Mangalayan on the reverse, depicting the country's first venture in interplanetary space," the Finance Ministry said in a statement.
The Rs 500 banknotes will be stone grey in color with a predominant new theme of the Indian heritage site Red Fort.
The RBI is introducing new design banknotes in the denomination of Rs 2,000 as part of Mahatma Gandhi (New) Series.
The government on Tuesday had demonitised the Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes as part of its efforts to clamp down against the black money, fake currency and terror financing.
