The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has told the Supreme Court that merchants cannot pass on Merchant Discount Rate (MDR) charges to customers under the revised UPI pricing framework.
The top court on September 28 had sought responses from the Centre and others, including the NPCI, on a petition challenging the decision to impose an MDR on specified UPI person-to-merchant transactions above Rs 2,000.
The court, however, had declined to grant an interim stay on the revised framework after the petitioner’s counsel sought suspension of the decision pending consideration of the matter.
In a response affidavit filed on November 3, the NPCI told a bench headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant that UPI application providers cannot impose platform fees or other charges on users for making payments through the Unified Payments Interface (UPI).
The petition had challenged the amendment to Section 10A of the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007, introduced through the Taxation and Other Laws (Amendment) Act, 2026, the subsequent Finance Ministry notification and NPCI’s revised MDR framework announced in September.