Thiru Justice S.A. Kader, President — This is a Public Interest Litigation filed by the Consumer Action Group under Section 17 read with Section 12 of the Consumer Protection Act.

2. The brief facts of the case are these:—

The 3rd opposite party, Indian Banks' Association is an unregistered body having nearly 148 banks as members from the Public/Private and Foreign sectors. The 3rd opposite party has arbitrarily and very substantially increased the service charges levied by its members for collection of Cheques, issue of Demand Drafts, Mail and Telegraph Transfers, processing of loans, discounting of bills, issue of bankers cheque, pay orders, ledger folio charges, etc. The hiked charges are computed on an ad-valorem basis and bear no nexus to the ser-vices rendered. They are in the form of a tax on the public for using the banking system. Prior to the imposition of these new service charges, the opposite parties were levying charges nearly 300% less than the proposed hikes. Even now, many banks continue to levy only nominal and reasonable charges for their services. After dealing in details with the hike in the service charges for each of the services rendered by the banks, it