Selling a banknote with disparity

Question

Question: Is exchange at a discount permissible or not? That is, if someone takes the value of a rupee from somebody, he takes the rupee and returns to him fifteen and a half annas (a coin worth 1/16 of a rupee). What is to be ascertained is: is it permissible for him to take this rupee, or will it be taking interest? Or he gives a note and receives fifteen annas, and the other keeps one anna — is taking this permissible or not?

Answer

When silver is sold for silver, disparity in it is impermissible. If silver is sold for something other than silver — whether gold, or nickel alloy, brass, copper or the like — then equality is not a condition; rather, disparity is permissible. And the paisa (a small copper coin, a fraction of a rupee) is not, by its original creation, a price (thaman)

Source: Fatawa Mahmudiyya

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