INDIAS SMILE AND ORS. Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Re: W.P. 2926(W) of 2014

(2.) Petitioner nos.1 and 2, the operators of Route No.223 and petitioner no.3, an association representing other operators about 35 in number run on the Route No.223, are before us.

(3.) According to them, they carry on their transport business and they are doing their business after borrowing money from financial institutions. According to them, small coins of different denominations needed per day would be about 300 rupees for each vehicle to run the transport business. In order to secure such small coins, they have to pay huge commission to the tune of 20% to 25% to third parties who collected small coins from Reserve Bank of India, Calcutta Branch. When they addressed a letter to General Manager, Coin Issue Department, Reserve Bank of India dated April 8, 2013, they received a letter intimating that the parties have to approach State Bank of India, Calcutta Main Branch for issuance of such small coins. When they approached the State Bank of India, State Bank of India, Calcutta Main Branch issued small coins directly to the denomination of 1 and 2 amounting to Rs.10,000/- which is inadequate. Thereafter, they were not able to get any small coins in spite of guidelines and the procedure which contemplates issuance of small coins to individual like bus operators syndicate apart from other public bodies. Therefore, they have approached the Court seeking direction to the respondent authorities to directly issue small coins to the operators as per their requirement whenever they approach the authorities. As a matter of fact, this matter was filed before the learned Single Judge and the same was referred to this Court as another petition being W.P. No.26085(W) of 2013 was pending in a public interest litigation.