- (1.) Re: W.P. 2926(W) of 2014 This writ petition came to be filed seeking following reliefs against the respondents herein:- "a) A writ of or in the nature of Mandamus commanding the respondent authorities, its associates, servants and sub-ordinates, particularly the Reserve Bank of India, Calcutta, to forthwith issue small coins directly to the petitioners as also to the members of the petitioner nos.3-Association at least Rs.1500/- per day for each vehicle. b) A writ of or in the nature of Mandamus commanding the respondent authorities, its associates, servants and subordinates not to compel the petitioners to purchase the coins from the touts by giving commission for such purchase. c) A writ of or in the nature of Certiorari commanding the respondent authorities, its associates, servants and subordinates to produce or cause to be produced all the records of the case and to certify the same, so that conscionable justice may be done by commanding the respondent authorities, its associates, servants, sub-ordinates and agents not to give effect to any such decision, if any, for not distributing such coins to the petitioners and other operators of Route No.223 directly in any manner whatsoever. d) A writ of or in the nature of Prohibition prohibiting the respondent authorities, its associates, servants and sub-ordinates from withholding the issuance of small coins to the petitioners as also other operators of Rout No.223 directly in any manner whatsoever. e) Rule Nisi in terms of prayers (a), (b), (c) and (d) as above. f) An ad-interim order directing the respondent authorities, each one of them, their men, agents, associates, particularly the Reserve Bank of India, Calcutta to issue small coins to the petitioners and the operators of Route No.223 directly at least Rs.1500/- each per day till the disposal of this application. g) Pass such other or further order or orders and / or direction or directions as to Your Lordship may seem fit and proper. i) Costs and incidentals thereto."
(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. Re: W.P. 26085(W) of 2013;