LAHORE, Dec 15: The Lahore High Court on Friday directed the State Bank of Pakistan to depute a ‘responsible’ officer on the next day of the hearing of a writ petition on non-availability of coins in the market.

An SBP officer, Rehan Ahmad, deposed that coins of all denominations were available in banks and markets. When the court required him to explain if hotels, filling stations, general stores were returning coins after receiving bills from consumers, the officer failed to answer and the court seemed entirely dissatisfied with his explanations.

The court also directed the federal government to submit its reply to explain the reasons for dispensing with currency notes of smaller denominations and issuing coins instead.

The court adjourned until the first week of January further proceedings in the writ petition through which Advocate M D Tahir had challenged the withdrawal of currency notes of the value of Re1, Rs2 and Rs5 and issuing coins in their place.

He also challenged the issuing of the currency notes of Rs100, 50, 20 and 10 denomination and withdrawal of coins of the denomination of paisa five to 50.

An earlier report of the SBP submitted that the coins of Re1, Rs2 and Rs5 were issued and currency notes of the same denominations withdrawn under a federal government policy. However, the report submitted that the SBP had not withdrawn coins of smaller denominations although they were now less in demand throughout the country.

The SBP report stated that the bank regularly issued demand of minting coins of the value of paisa five, 10, 25 and 50 to the Pakistan Mint and it was wrong to suggest that their minting had been dispensed with.

The lawyer submitted in his petition that coins of the denomination smaller than one rupee were in circulation in Sindh, Balochistan and the NWFP but not in Punjab as a result of which consumers had to pay more for all the purchases made and services hired.