HC asks govt to respond to PIL on capping air fares within 8 days

The government has been asked to consider the capping of airfares within eight days, after a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) was filed against the Ministry of Civil Aviation and Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), according to a Zee Business report.

The petitioner Amit Sahni, who is an advocate, has filed the PIL in Delhi High Court seeking the government to cap air fares of private airlines across the country. This he said is necessary as “many a times these companies charge their customers arbitrarily, irrationally and exorbitantly.”

Sahni said the hike in prices are especially seen during the unfortunate times faced by people in the country such as 'Jat Agitation' in Haryana in February 2016 or floods in Chennai.

“Unfortunately neighboring State of Haryana had recently witnessed a tragic situation in the month of February 2016 at the time of “Jat Agitation” for reservation and at that painful moment, the private airline companies charged their companies 15-25 times of the actual air fare. Even during the Flood hit South India last year more particularly Chennai, Airlines cashed the helplessness of citizen of this country,” he said in the PIL.

He further added, “It is an open secret that at those painful and unfortunate moments, more than thousands trains were cancelled and many state transport corporation had cancelled its bus services across the state and since there was no cap on the maximum air fare, the private companies had been fleecing their customers even in tragic situation and the respondents had totally failed to control the air fare, particularly to people, who wanted to travel from Delhi to Chandigarh.”