The Supreme Court on Thursday pulled up the Centre for repeatedly seeking adjournments instead of explaining whether the government would introduce a proper mechanism to check surging airfares, particularly during festivals and holidays.
The court noted that although the notice was issued to the government and the ministry on November 17 last year, no response had been filed till date.
When the matter came up for hearing on Thursday, the counsel for the petitioner, who had challenged the frequent airfare hikes, complained that the Centre had failed to file any response so far.
This prompted Justice Vikram Nath, heading the bench, to ask additional solicitor-general Anil Kaushik appearing for the Centre: "What is this? What prevents you from filing a counter?"
The ASG said the government was in the process of framing rules and cited the US-Iran war as the reason for surging airfares, but the court showed its disinclination to entertain any oral argument and said the submissions should be made only through a written affidavit.
The bench, which also had Justice Sandeep Mehta, rejected the plea of the Centre and the ministry of civil aviation for granting another three to four weeks to file its response, directing that an affidavit be filed by May 8 and saying the matter would be taken up again on May 11.
According to the petitioner, "unregulated, opaque and exploitative conditions of airlines manifested in arbitrary fare hikes" and also "unilateral" reduction of several benefits, including reducing the baggage capacity from 25kg to 15kg.
The petitioner complained that airlines were resorting to such unethical practices owing to the fact that there was no redress mechanism for the passenger to ventilate their grievances.