High court satisfied with e-passes for emergency travel

A division bench comprising Justices Vineet Kothari and Pushpa Sathyanarayana noted that even the petitioners did not have any case in hand to point out the alleged undue delay caused by the State and district level committees in issuing e-passes.

Additional Advocate General SR Rajagopal informed the court that the process of issuing e-passes commenced from May 2. By applying the necessary filters, all the e-pass applications are immediately attended. In the case of death and medical emergencies, applications are processed in half an hour in Chennai, while it is processed in two hours in the districts.

He submitted that even between 2 AM and 8 AM, skeletal staff is available to process emergency applications. The State level committee looks into inter-State e-passes whereas the District level committee looks into the applications for inter-district travel. He noted that if the applications were rejected for want of proof showing the requirement of such travel, the order was communicated to the applicants. SMS alerts are sent to the respective mobile numbers.