E-passes no longer needed for travel, Tamil Nadu government tells High Court

CHENNAI: The Tamil Nadu government on Wednesday informed the Madras high court that e-passes are no longer required for travel within Tamil Nadu or for domestic and international travellers to the state.

However, an e-registration is required for travellers to hill stations in the state and also those coming to Tamil Nadu from other states and countries. In the e-registration system, only basic details of the travellers are recorded and permission is given by the automatic system to everyone who registers.

Tamil Nadu's advocate-general Vijay Narayan submitted in the court that under the e-registration process, the traveller should provide only his basic details like the address and contact number for the purpose of contact tracing in view of the COVID-19 situation. The e-registration process is automated and no prior approval is needed for such travel, he added.

Advocate-general Vijay Narayan also submitted that the state has passed a government order doing away with the mandatory requirement of an e-pass for intra-state travellers.

The first bench of Chief Justice AP Sahi and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy was hearing the plea moved by KR Ezhil Nadhi challenging the restriction imposed by the government prohibiting travel to hill stations in the state.

The advocate-general submitted, “The state government has passed a government order on October 27 modifying the restrictions for movement of the public in view of the pandemic.”

According to the counsel for the petitioner, Abishek Jebaraj argued that the Union ministry of home affairs guidelines were issued on September 30 which restrains states from imposing lockdowns outside containment zones.

The bench recording the submissions orally observed that the government had substantially solved the problem by the order and closed the plea.