The Centre on Tuesday told the Madras High Court that the numerals written in Devanagari script on the new Rs 2,000 note were just a “design”. The court had sought clarification from the Centre on the choice after a Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam functionary had argued that the use of the Devanagari script was against the Official Languages Act, 1963, PTI reported.

KPT Ganesan, in his petition, had asked the court to declare the Rs 2,000 currency note invalid. The PIL also claimed that the Constitution allows the use of the international forms of Indian numerals for any official purpose.

The court disagreed with the explanation by the Centre’s counsel, Assistant Solicitor General GR Swaminathan, saying that since the new numerals represented a promise on the part of the Reserve Bank of India governor, the script cannot be considered a design feature. The next hearing in the matter will be on November 28.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had on November 8 announced that Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes would be demonetised in an effort to curb black money and counterfeit currency.