Bombay High Court extends stay on fare hike

In a temporary relief to citizens of Mumbai, the Bombay high court on Friday extended stay on the proposed fare hike of the Mumbai Metro and adjourned the hearing on this issue to April 12.

Senior counsel Aspi Chinoy informed the division bench of Justice V.M. Kanade and Justice Makarand Subhash Karnik that another bench of the high court had, in an interim order on December 17, stayed the proposed hike in fares of the Versova-Ghatkopar Metro Rail Corridor and, aggrieved, the Mumbai Metro One Private Limited (MMOPL), a subsidiary of Reliance Energy, which runs the Metro, moved the apex court challenging the high court’s order.

Mr Chinoy further explained that there was some misunderstanding and the Supreme Court had directed the Bombay high court to take up this matter for final hearing and decide it in a day. However, the petitioner again moved the SC and now the apex court has made amendment in its order and said that the high court should hear the application seeking interim relief expeditiously.

A division bench headed by Justice V.M. Kanade was hearing the petitions, including one by MMRDA, challenging the report of the Fare Fixation Committee as well as the proposal by R-Infra run Mumbai Metro One Private Limited (MMOPL) to hike fares. The court was also hearing an intervening application filed by Congress leader Sanjay Nirupam challenging the fare hike.

MMOPL, which is operating the Versova-Ghatkopar corridor, had earlier announced that it would increase the fares by Rs 5 from December 1, 2015. Instead of the earlier slabs of Rs 10, Rs 20, Rs 30 and Rs 40, the proposed new structure will have five slabs of Rs 10, Rs 20, Rs 25, Rs 35 and Rs 45. However, the MMRDA, which has commissioned the Mumbai Metro, challenged the hike alleging that the Centre was facilitating private profiteering by allowing multiple fare hike.

On Friday, MMOPL’s lawyer Janak Dwarkadas too informed the court that due to various factors like delay of approximately 6 and a half years in handing over the land by the government, the cost of building infrastructure to run the Metro had escalated and now the operator was incurring a loss of Rs 55 lakh on a daily basis and it wanted to increase the fare not to earn a profit but to get the operational cost.