The Madras High Court Bench here on Friday sought the response of the Central and the State Government to a public interest litigation petition seeking provision of credit and debit card swiping facilities at railway stations, bus stands, State-run liquor outlets, educational institutions, post offices, LPG outlets, government hospitals and other public places.
A Division Bench of Justices A. Selvam and P. Kalaiyarasan ordered notices to Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs, Union Ministry of Finance and Chief Secretary to the State Government on the petition filed by B. Ramkumar Adityan, a law graduate from Thoothukudi, highlighting severe hardships faced by the people due to demonetisation of Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 notes.
The petitioner said demonetisation, delay in introduction of new currency notes and unavailability of funds in banks and the ATMs had led to a chaos among the people. There was also no way to shift to cashless transaction completely since even government establishments had not established the required infrastructure.
He also said though the common man was unable to withdraw money from bank accounts, the raids conducted by Income Tax Department and Enforcement Directorate officials in various places across the country had unearthed huge amounts of old currency notes and the new Rs. 2,000 notes.
The petitioner also said the Centre had announced various incentives for the people opting for cashless transactions, but had failed to ensure that all public utility service providers were equipped with Electronic Draft Capture (EDC) machines which were essential for making payments through credit and debit cards.
