The Supreme Court on Tuesday threatened to order a scrutiny of the “air route” allotment policy of the Government by former CAG Vinod Rai.
Miffed at the national carrier Air India and the Centre for depriving air connectivity to Shimla all these years, the Court wished to go into the details of the Route Disbursal Policy and said a “general impression” is gaining ground that private airlines are given a “largesse” when it comes to operating on lucrative routes at the cost of Government airlines which is running in debt.
The Bench of Chief Justice TS Thakur and R Banumathi went through the policy and mooted the idea of conducting an audit of the entire policy to understand how the national carrier suffered as a result of lucrative routes being given to private carriers.
“Route disbursal policies are not all that sacrosanct. Giving routes and licenses is like a largesse that you grant to private airline operators without insisting on their obligations…We will appoint Vinod Rai to examine whether the Guidelines are being implemented at the cost of national carrier (Air India) and whether other private airlines are being favoured with lucrative routes at the cost of connectivity,” the bench said.
Additional Solicitor General (ASG) PS Patwalia resisted such a move and sought one final opportunity to explore possibility of launching air traffic to Shimla and report to Court by April 21. The bench wished to know what stopped the Centre from placing an obligation on the big private airlines houses to operate on one non-lucrative route such as Shimla or North East along with other lucrative routes. “The general impression is that route disbursal policy has led national carrier to debt. If we decide to examine this policy it will be the beginning of another exposure as many skeletons will tumble out.”
The Court was of the view that North East lost out on air connectivity as it is politically less significant. “You (Centre) are only interested in promoting commercial interest of (private) operators than the interest of people,” the bench said.