1 Rupee

The Government of India 1 Rupee sits outside the Reserve Bank of India's jurisdiction — by a legal quirk dating to the colonial period, the Finance Ministry retained direct authority over the one-rupee note, which technically functions as a coin substitute rather than a banknote. This distinction was carried into independent India without modification and persists to the present day, which is why the note bears the Finance Secretary's signature rather than the RBI Governor's.

The 1951 issue was among the earliest post-independence printings to drop British imperial references from the text. Printed at the Indian Security Press, Nasik, which had only recently assumed production previously handled under British oversight.