1 Rupee - Shah Alam II Banaras mint

Banaras came under East India Company control through the 1775 Treaty of Chunar, by which Chait Singh — the raja installed by the Nawab of Awadh — acknowledged Company suzerainty and agreed to annual tribute. The mint at Banaras was permitted to continue striking in the name of the Mughal emperor Shah Alam II as a political convenience; openly replacing the imperial name would have been provocative at a moment when Company authority in the region was still being consolidated through negotiation rather than force.

The 1773 date predates formal British administrative control of the city by two years, placing this issue in the transitional period when the Company was effectively dictating terms while maintaining Mughal ceremonial fiction on the coinage.