Fact Check: Rs 500 notes marked with * are legal tender and can be used for transactions

According to the Reserve Bank of India’s annual report, the consumption of Rs 500 denomination currency notes has jumped to 86.5 %. This surge was witnessed due to the withdrawal of the Rs 2000 note.

A message is in circulation claiming that the Rs 500 note marked with * are fake. The message ‘Rs 500 notes marked with * has started circulating in the market. Such a note was returned from IndusInd Bank. This is a *fake note*. Even today, I received 2-3 such notes from a customer but returned it immediately because of due attention. The customer also said that this note was given by someone in the morning. Be careful, there has been an increase in the number of people walking around with fake notes in the market. Appeal - Be an Alert Citizen, please spread the message to more and more. So that the thieves fail‘ is being spread with the image of Rs 500 highlighting the *.

Fact Check:

The claim is False. The Rs 500 notes marked with * (asterisk) +are genuine and released by the Reserve Bank of India.

When we searched using the keywords ‘Rs 500 marked with *’, we found a few articles published in the year 2023 clarifying that the RBI has confirmed that the notes with * symbol are genuine and valid.

According to an article published in Hindustan Times, the * was introduced on the new Rs 500 banknotes in December 2016. RBI addressed rumors circulating on social media platforms, clarifying that the asterisk (*) symbol on the number panel of the banknote indicates that it is a replaced or reprinted banknote. These asterisk (*) bank notes are identical to other legal banknotes and are considered valid currency.

The article goes on to state that if you come across a banknote packet with asterisk series notes, don't be alarmed. They are genuine and can be freely used as legal tender. The asterisk series notes look the same as regular notes in the Mahatma Gandhi series but have an additional *(asterisk) in the number panel, for example, 4CC*456987. The packet will still contain 100 banknotes, but not necessarily in sequential order, and bands on the packets will indicate the presence of asterisk series notes. So, you can trust and use these asterisk (*) banknotes without any concerns.

PIB fact check also debunked this message and published a tweet on December 7, 2023, sharing the link to the RBI’s Press release.

The press release of RBI states that “Some of the captioned banknotes will have an additional character ‘*’ (asterisk) in the number panel in the space between the prefix and the number. Packets containing these notes will have 100 pieces as usual but not in serial order. To facilitate easy identification of note packets containing ‘star’ notes the bands on such packets will clearly indicate the presence of these notes in the packet. ‘Star’ banknotes in ₹ 500 denomination are being issued for the first time. ‘Star’ banknotes in the denomination of ₹ 10, 20, 50, and 100 are already in circulation.”

Hence, the viral message claiming that the Rs 500 notes marked with * (asterisk) are fake is not true. The Rs 500 notes marked with * are genuine and valid and released by RBI. The claim is False.