The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court has issued notices to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) on a public interest litigation (PIL) questioning the absence of a recipient-side mechanism in the electronic payment system that allows an account holder to accept or decline an incoming transaction before the money is credited to their account.
A division bench of Justice Rajan Roy and Justice Manjive Shukla passed the order on August 24 on the PIL filed by Lucknow-based advocate Anupriya Agrawal.
The petitioner has sought directions to the RBI to issue appropriate guidelines, within two months, providing a mandatory “Accept/Decline” option before an incoming payment is credited to the recipient’s bank account.
Petitioner’s counsel Saksham Agrawal submitted that the existing digital payment architecture substantially facilitates the initiation and authentication of a transaction by the payer, while the recipient is ordinarily not provided with a corresponding transaction-level mechanism to indicate whether they wish to receive a particular incoming payment.
Such asymmetry, he argued, warrants examination from the standpoint of customer protection, financial autonomy, privacy and prevention of misuse of electronic payment systems.
After hearing the petitioner’s counsel and the counsel appearing for the Centre, the court issued notices to the RBI and NPCI. It directed that the matter be listed after eight weeks for the next hearing.
{{/usCountry}}After hearing the petitioner’s counsel and the counsel appearing for the Centre, the court issued notices to the RBI and NPCI. It directed that the matter be listed after eight weeks for the next hearing.
{{/usCountry}}The Union of India, through the secretary, ministry of finance; the RBI, through its governor; and the NPCI, through its managing director, have been made opposite parties in the petition.