The Hindu: New Delhi: Monday,
April 24, 2017.
The Delhi High Court has asked the Central
government to respond to a petition seeking capping of airfares.
A Bench of Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal asked
the Centre to file its reply and posted the matter for September 15.
The petitioner informed the Bench that the earlier
direction by the court to decide the issue was not complied with.
Meanwhile, the Centre told the court that airfare
were beyond the control of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation.
The petitioner said an RTI response from the Civil
Aviation Ministry had stated that airfares were not controlled by the
government.
Citing the Jat agitation in Haryana last year,
when road and rail traffic was blocked, the plea said the airlines wouldn’t
have escalated fares in such an emergency situation had there been a cap on
airfares.
“Private airlines have fleeced people even in
emergency situations and the government has stood as mute spectator,” the plea
said, adding there was an “urgent need to regulate the upper limit of airfares
so that private airlines cannot fleece their customers as per their own wish”.
Capping of airfares in the backdrop of passengers’
complains of arbitrary tariff hikes was recently ruled out by the government,
which had said that competition among airlines would take care of the problem.
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