India pushed back against the International Monetary Fund for saying the Reserve Bank of India’s intervention in the foreign-exchange market was excessive, implying that the country was trying to influence the level of the rupee.

The Washington-based lender said the currency moved within a very narrow range from December 2022 to October 2023, suggesting the central bank’s intervention “likely exceeded levels necessary to address disorderly market conditions.”

As a result, the IMF reclassified India’s foreign-exchange regime to a “stabilized arrangement” from a “floating” system, it said in its annual Article IV country report released on Monday.

India “strongly disagreed” with the assessment, calling it “unjustified,” the IMF said. The Reserve Bank of India stated that the period was restricted to a short-term, and that the IMF’s assessment would fail over a two to five-year horizon, the fund said.

“The RBI strongly believes that such a view is incorrect as, in their view, it uses data selectively,” the IMF said in its report. A RBI spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to text messages seeking further information.

The rupee weakened about 2% against the dollar between December 2022 and October 2023, after falling about 8% in the prior 12 months. The RBI is estimated to have intervened to the tune of $78 billion dollars in those nine months, according to Bloomberg Economics. The country’s FX reserves of $604 billion is approaching the record high $642.5 billion reached in 2021.