CHENNAI: A writ petition has been filed in Madras High Court to quash a notification dated December 30 of Reserve Bank of India, which introduced collection of fees at toll gates through FASTag.
The RBI has authorised fee payment system developed by National Electronic Toll Collection (NETC) that uses a radio frequency identification tag called FASTag that is mapped to a vehicle registration number and linked to the customer’s bank account for deduction of toll payment.
Petitioner Kabilan Manoharan, an advocate, challenged the notification on the ground that it violated the existing directions of RBI, issued under Sec. 18 of Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007, which mandated an additional factor of authentication. In the absence of any such authentication, implementation of the system would be an arbitrary exercise of executive power affecting Article 14 of the Constitution. It violated the existing directions of RBI, which mandated additional factor of authentication by customer at the point of transaction. Even for online transactions, banks concerned would issue one time pass-word (OTP) to authenticate the same. No such facility is available in this system, petitioner contended.
He also narrated an incident in which he had to part with `55. There was an unauthorised deduction from his bank account which stands linked to the FASTag purchased by him.Whereas, the petitioner never crossed the plaza.