High Court intervention on Gulf airfare hikes raises hopes among expatriate Keralites
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Muscat; A court intervention through a verbal remark by Kerala High Court has raised a modicum of hope among Keralites living in the Gulf region, who have been clamouring for government to rein in profit-driven airlines to bring down fares in the Kerala-Gulf sector.
Expatriates complain that they are always at the receiving end of fare hikes during peak season, but the airlines claim that it is a normal commercial practice to capitalise on the demand-supply theory. In a way the central government also has mostly kept its hands off saying that it does not become the government to impose ceiling on fares charged by commercially operating carriers.
In this context a slew of petitions came up before the Kerala High Court for redressal of the grievance of having to pay through their nose for flights between various Gulf airports and the four international airports in Kerala, i.e. Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi, Kozhikode and the youngest airport of Kannur.
The different petitions came up before different benches on succeeding days and they sent notice to the Central and state governments for their explanation , in the process also implicitly chiding them for inaction.
en squarely blamed the state government for not doing anything to bring down the fares. Represented by Advocate Sajal, he submitted before the bench of Justice Devan Ramachandan that the state government was not taking up the matter with the Centre.
The court while recalling the suo moto action of impleading the state government, and asking for its explanation, pulled up the state government for its silence on the court’s action, on the grounds that it was the state government that could effectively take up the matter with the Centre. The bench also had expressed the hope that the state would take appropriate action. Now the court directed the state government again to urgently raise the demand to lower the ticket prices before the Centre. The bench scheduled the case to hear after ten days.
On another and joint petition before a division bench headed by Chief Justice AJ Desai by Organising Secretary of Gulf Air passengers Association of Calicut (Gapac) Abdul Rauf Kondotty, Pravasi Congress official Satheesh Chandana, and Dubai-based entrepreneur Saji Cherian, a division bench led by High Court Chief Justice also raised strong criticism. The chief Justice asked for explanation from the Central Government. He also sought to know from the Centre the reason why the air carriers were hiking fares at will. The chief demand in the petition was that guidelines should be issued regarding fare hikes.
The Centre’s counsel replied that it was a policy decision, but then the chief justice directed the counsel to file a detailed affidavit.
Although the check on exorbitant hikes in air fares and the practices of fleecing airlines, have been a long-standing demand of expatriates desirous of visiting home during holidays, such appeals have mostly fallen on deaf ears of both the Centre-state governments and ruling or opposition parties. The latest move by the social activists resident abroad is an attempt to resolve the matter once and for all with an effective intervention by the High Court.
