The coming days are going to be very important for the Indian digital payment ecosystem. The Supreme Court on Monday will hear a petition filed against the Central Government's decision to impose Merchant Discount Rate (MDR) on select UPI 'Person-to-Merchant' (P2M) transactions of more than Rs 2,000.

This entire matter is directly to the future of UPI payments, which have been completely free for the last six years. According to the new framework of the Central Government, from October 15, a charge of 0.4 percent has been implemented on payments of more than Rs 2000 to merchants through UPI, which has been limited to a maximum of Rs 300 on payments of Rs 75 thousand or more. However, person to person (P2P) transactions between ordinary citizens have been kept completely secure and free.

This PIL has been filed by advocate Ranjan Dutta, challenging the notification of September 14 and the MDR framework of September 15. The petition mainly alleges that this levy has been brought in hastily without any adequate statutory protection, transparency or public consultation. Also, questions have been raised on the constitutionality of the amended Section 10A of the 'Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007'.

The petitioner has expressed concern that imposition of duty on the basis of mere press release or FAQ without any duly published statutory document is arbitrary and discriminatory. Additionally, the distinction made between UPI and RuPay debit cards has also been questioned, as the free facility continues to be offered on RuPay cards without any monetary limit. Now this case will be heard by the bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice V. Mohana.