Delhi High Court seeks Central and State government stand on PIL to restrict cash transactions on e-commerce platforms

The Delhi High Court on Wednesday sought responses from the Central and Delhi governments on a petition seeking directions to restrict cash transactions on e-commerce websites..A Division Bench of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Tushar Rao Gedela did not issue notice on the matter, but asked the government counsel to obtain instructions in the matter. During the hearing, the Bench asked petitioner and BJP leader Ashwini Upadhyay if the Court can issue mandamus on issue like this. Upadhyay answered in the affirmative and stated that such cash transactions are the cause of most of the corruption in the country. .Upadhyay filed the petition as a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) and sought directions to Central and state governments to restrict cash transactions on e-commerce websites like Amazon and Flipkart. The plea further seeks directions that no cash transaction of over ₹10,000 should be allowed to pay electricity, gas, LPG or CNG bills or to buy air and rail tickets. A prayer has also been made to direct the governments to take steps to reduce corruption. .It argues that since 80 crore Indians receive free grants, they fall under the Below Poverty Line (BPL) category. Therefore, they do not buy goods and services of over ₹10,000 frequently."Therefore, the prayer in this PIL is a practical solution to control corruption, black money generation, money laundering, benami transactions and disproportionate assets," the plea stated..The plea further argued that India's ranking in the World Happiness Index as well as the Global Peace Index is very low, despite which the Centre and states have not taken steps to weed out corruption. It added that if the Central government recalls currencies having denominations of more than ₹100, restricts cash transactions of over ₹10,000, links movable assets with Aadhaar and enacts laws to confiscate black money and benami properties, it will lead to an increment of 2% in India's Gross Domestic Product (GDP). "There may be some inconvenience for a short period and political leaders who have fostered corruption and have huge black money may focus on the distress to common man but honest citizen won’t lose his hard-earned savings & nothing will get confiscated."