India’s Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance has held its seventh meeting on “A Study on Virtual Digital Assets (VDAs) and Way Forward,” taking oral evidence from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and holding discussions with representatives of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI). The meeting was chaired by Shri Bhartruhari Mahtab, MP, and focused on India’s evolving approach toward cryptocurrencies, CBDC, taxation, audit treatment, and regulatory safeguards.

• Finance Panel Holds Seventh VDA Meeting
• RBI Maintains Cautious Crypto Position
• ICAI Role Highlights Accounting & Audit Concerns
• India’s Crypto Policy Enters Next Phase

Finance Panel Holds Seventh VDA Meeting

India’s parliamentary review of virtual digital assets has entered a new phase, with the Standing Committee on Finance hearing directly from the Reserve Bank of India and ICAI. The Lok Sabha Secretariat said the committee took oral evidence from RBI representatives and held discussions with ICAI representatives on the subject of VDAs and the way forward.

This meeting was important because it brought together two very different but equally important perspectives. RBI represents monetary policy, financial stability, payments, consumer protection, and systemic risk. ICAI represents accounting, audit, compliance, reporting, and tax treatment. Together, their inputs can help lawmakers understand how India should approach crypto beyond simple taxation.

The discussion follows an earlier report that the Parliament Finance Panel was set to meet RBI over crypto regulations on July 2. That meeting has now taken place, and the most important takeaway is that RBI did not recommend granting legal status to cryptocurrencies in India.

India already taxes VDAs, but taxation does not automatically mean legal recognition as currency, legal tender, or a fully regulated financial product. This gap has remained central to India’s crypto debate. Users, exchanges, tax professionals, and regulators continue operating in a framework where digital assets are taxed, monitored, and reported, but not yet governed by a dedicated crypto law.

The committee’s seventh meeting shows that Parliament is still gathering evidence before recommending a broader policy direction. It also reflects the growing relevance of recent developments such as India FIU targeting crypto OTC trades above $10K, rising tax scrutiny, enforcement actions, and the continued role of stablecoins in domestic crypto activity.

🇮🇳 India's Parliamentary Finance Committee holds its 7th meeting on crypto today. Today's meeting was with RBI and ICAI.

Chairman Bhartruhari Mahtab says RBI did not recommend giving cryptocurrencies legal status in India.

Video: ANI pic.twitter.com/Wpv3izHB8n

— Crypto India (@CryptooIndia) July 2, 2026

RBI Maintains Cautious Crypto Position

After the meeting, Chairman Bhartruhari Mahtab said RBI had shared its views on virtual digital assets. When asked whether RBI had suggested giving cryptocurrencies legal status in India, his response was clear: No.

This aligns with RBI’s long-standing cautious approach toward private cryptocurrencies. The central bank has consistently been concerned about risks linked to monetary sovereignty, capital flows, financial stability, fraud, consumer protection, and illicit finance. While India has allowed trading under a tax and compliance framework, RBI has not supported treating private crypto assets as legal tender or equivalent to regulated money.

The discussion also touched on India’s central bank digital currency pilot. RBI has been testing CBDC for more than three years, but Mahtab indicated that RBI’s digital asset has not flourished in comparison with other digital assets. This is an important observation because India’s CBDC push was expected to provide a sovereign digital alternative to private crypto assets and stablecoins.

The slow adoption of CBDC raises a larger question: what do users actually want from digital money? Private crypto markets offer liquidity, global transferability, speculation, and access to tokenized ecosystems. CBDC, on the other hand, is designed as sovereign digital money within the regulated banking system. These are very different use cases.

EtherWorld has previously covered how RBI-linked liquidity and dollar demand intersect with the stablecoin debate in RBI’s $5B USD/INR Swap Puts Stablecoin Debate Back. The latest committee meeting adds another layer to that discussion: India may be cautious about crypto, but users continue interacting with digital assets for liquidity, trading, payments, and cross-border settlement.

This tension was recently visible when the India USDT premium jumped above 8.5% amid supply crunch. Such episodes show that crypto demand in India is not just theoretical. It exists even under strict taxation, compliance pressure, and regulatory uncertainty.

ICAI Role Highlights Accounting & Audit Concerns

The committee also met representatives from ICAI, which plays a critical role in India’s financial reporting and audit ecosystem. According to Mahtab, ICAI representatives discussed the auditing aspect of digital assets under income tax law. This matters because India’s crypto policy is no longer only about whether trading should be allowed. It is also about how digital assets should be recorded, valued, reported, audited, and verified.

For individuals, crypto taxation already includes a 30% tax on gains and 1% TDS on applicable transactions. For businesses, exchanges, and Web3 firms, the picture is more complex. Questions remain around custody, wallet control, revenue recognition, token classification, treasury holdings, impairment, fair value, disclosures, and audit evidence.

India’s tax authorities have already intensified scrutiny. EtherWorld reported that India intensified crypto oversight as ED froze ₹4,190 crore and 44,057 tax notices were sent. That enforcement trend makes ICAI’s role even more important because accountants and auditors will be central to whether crypto activity can be properly disclosed and reconciled.

The growing enforcement environment also connects with reports such as Bengaluru crypto firms under scrutiny over alleged ₹2,500 crore transfers and India’s FIU ban on privacy coins like Monero and Zcash. These developments show that regulators are increasingly focused on traceability, beneficial ownership, transaction reporting, and compliance standards.

ICAI’s involvement may help India move toward clearer accounting treatment for digital assets. Without accounting clarity, businesses struggle to maintain clean books, auditors struggle to verify crypto holdings, and regulators struggle to distinguish compliant activity from suspicious flows. This is especially important as tokenization expands beyond crypto trading into securities, bonds, real-world assets, and institutional finance.

EtherWorld has previously covered India’s interest in regulated tokenized markets in India’s SEBI Plans to Tokenised Corporate Bonds and broader institutional tokenization trends in India Spotlighted as BlackRock CEO Larry Fink Calls Tokenization Essential. If India moves toward tokenized financial instruments, audit and accounting rules will become even more important than they are today.

On the subject ‘A Study on Virtual Digital Assets (VDAs) and Way Forward’, the Standing Committee on Finance, Chaired by Shri Bhartruhari Mahtab, MP, took oral evidence from representatives of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and held discussions with representatives of the… pic.twitter.com/mq2xt57Q4U

— LOK SABHA (@LokSabhaSectt) July 2, 2026

India’s Crypto Policy Enters Next Phase

The latest Finance Committee meeting does not mean India is about to legalize cryptocurrencies. It also does not mean an immediate ban is coming. Instead, it suggests that India’s crypto policy process is moving through a consultation-heavy phase where lawmakers are collecting views from institutions that will shape any future framework.

The key policy challenge is balance. India wants to prevent money laundering, fraud, tax evasion, and capital flight. At the same time, blockchain technology, tokenization, stablecoins, and Web3 infrastructure are becoming part of global finance. A restrictive framework may reduce visible domestic activity, but it may also push users toward offshore or peer-to-peer markets. A permissive framework may support innovation but could create risks without strong safeguards.

This is why recent developments must be viewed together. On one side, India is increasing oversight through FIU reporting, tax notices, exchange compliance, and enforcement actions. On the other side, there is rising discussion around tokenized bonds, institutional blockchain adoption, digital settlement, and Web3 infrastructure. EtherWorld has also covered No Tax Relief for Crypto in India’s Budget 2026, showing that the government has not softened its tax stance yet.

The domestic market has also seen platform-level developments such as Coinbase India INR Rails Comes With a Catch and broader questions like Does India Need Stablecoins When UPI Already Works. These debates show that India’s crypto future is not only about speculative trading. It is also about payments, liquidity, financial infrastructure, tokenized assets, compliance technology, and digital public goods.

For now, RBI’s position remains cautious, ICAI’s role is becoming more visible, and Parliament is continuing its evidence-gathering process. The statement that RBI did not recommend legal status for cryptocurrencies is significant, but it should be read as part of a broader regulatory journey rather than a final policy outcome.

India has already acknowledged VDAs through tax law. It has already brought exchanges under stricter compliance expectations. It has already increased enforcement around suspicious transactions. The next step is likely to be a more structured framework that defines responsibilities for exchanges, users, auditors, banks, payment providers, and enforcement agencies.

The seventh committee meeting may therefore become an important checkpoint in India’s digital asset policy roadmap. It shows that lawmakers are not treating crypto as a fringe issue anymore. They are studying it through the lens of central banking, taxation, audit, compliance, and financial stability.

India’s crypto policy is entering its next phase, and the central question is no longer whether digital assets exist in the economy. The real question is how India will regulate them without losing control, innovation, or market transparency.

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Related Articles

1. Parliament Finance Panel to Meet RBI Over Crypto Regulations on July 2
2. India FIU Targets Crypto OTC Trades Above $10K
3. India USDT Premium Jumps Above 8.5% Amid Supply Crunch
4. India Intensifies Crypto Oversight as ED Freezes ₹4,190 Cr & 44,057 Tax Notices Sent
5. RBI’s $5B USD/INR Swap Puts Stablecoin Debate Back

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