An advocate has filed a public interest litigation petition in the Madras High Court alleging that implementation of FASTag, a national electronic toll collection system on highways, is mired with illegalities and violations of existing rules and regulations issued by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).
The petitioner, Kabilan Manoharan, 46, of Chennai claimed that the RBI guideline of using Additional Factor of Authentication (AFA), such as confirming a financial transaction by way of entering One Time Password (OTP), had been given a go by in implementation of FASTag thereby leading to anomalies.
He claimed that the absence of such AFA had led to him being charged ₹55 from his FASTag prepaid wallet for having crossed a toll plaza at Sriperumbudur at around 1 a.m. on November 25 though on that day his car was actually parked in his residence at T. Nagar in Chennai and he was fast asleep at home.
The petitioner said that he had actually travelled on the Chennai-Bengaluru national highway on November 23. He crossed the Nemili toll plaza near Sriperumbudur and Chennasamudram toll plaza near Wallajahpet on that day between 9 a.m. and 10.35 p.m. after paying toll through cash for return journey as well.
However, after crossing those two toll plazas, he purchased FASTag from Airtel payments bank counter at Chennasamudram after completing Know Your Customer formalities. Thereafter, he crossed the Pallikonda and Vaniyambadi toll plazas using the FASTag radio frequency identification sticker stuck on the wind shield.
He returned to Chennai on the same day evening and crossed the first two toll plazas, on his way back, using the FASTag and utilised the physical return toll receipts at the other two toll plazas. However, at 1.13 a.m. on November 25 he received a text message on his mobile phone regarding deduction of ₹55 from his wallet for having crossed Sriperumbudur toll plaza.
Despite lodging complaints, nothing much happened, he said and urged the court to stay the operation of Rule 6(3) of the National Highways Fee (Determination of Rates and Collection) Rules of 2008 which make FASTag mandatory by forcing the travellers to pay double the amount of toll in the absence of the FASTag RFID stickers.
He pointed out that in 2014, the Centre had decided to reserve one lane alone for FASTag and collect double the amount of toll from vehicles that enter into those reserved lanes without a FASTag sticker. However, now it had reversed the trend by making all lanes into FASTag lanes and deciding to collect double the amount of toll from those who who do not possess those stickers.
It was an indirect way of forcing all vehicles to purchase FASTag stickers, he said.
