Even after giving an undertaking to the Madras high court three years ago that railway reservation forms would be printed and made available in Tamil the Southern Railway continues to issue forms in the state only in Malayalam, Hindi and English.

SR has been ignoring protests from passengers who can read only Tamil and to whom Hindi, English and Malayalam may as well be French. Passengers have another issue: They are denied help at the reservation counters.

Thirumohan , a yarn merchant, who regularly shuffles between Chennai and Coimbatore pointed out , “Most of the counters at Chennai Central are mostly employed with North Indian and Malayalees and passengers have a tough time clearing their doubts after waiting in long queues”.

“The Malayalam forms have only been issued on a temporary basis as the Tamil forms have been exhausted. The Tamil forms will be issued as soon as they are available”, a senior southern railway official said.

In June 2007, the first Bench comprising then Chief Justice A.P. Shah and Justice P. Jyothimani and advocate P. Ravi asked with forms being supplied to all over TN from Chennai.

Advocate Ravi argued that uneducated people would be most affected.