Delhi HC refuses plea against Vizag airport closures
The Delhi High Court on Wednesday refused to entertain a plea against the closure of Visakhapatnam Airport for commercial flights. A bench of Chief Justice DK Upadhyaya and Justice Tejas Karia said that the petitioner should have approached the Andhra Pradesh High Court with his grievance, as it was the people there who were “suffering” on account of the closure. The counsel for the petitioner urged the bench to call for a reply from the authorities, contending that the “decision” to shut down the airport was taken in Delhi.
“Where is the order impacting people? When parts of the cause of action are in two high courts, it is the dominant high court which determines the forum. The dominant cause of action is in Visakhapatnam. File it there,” the court responded. The court also noted that a PIL on the issue is pending in the Andhra Pradesh High Court.
“The petition is dismissed on the ground of forum non conveniens,” ordered the bench. The court said the petitioner can approach the Andhra Pradesh High Court with his plea. The petitioner’s counsel said the authorities shut down the Vizag airport in an arbitrary and high-handed manner. He emphasised that instead of having two functional airports, a decision was taken to shift all operations to a new airport which was “60 km or two hours away from the most populated city” in the state.
“Suffering was of people of Visakhapatnam, not Delhi,” the court told the petitioner’s lawyer. Scheduled commercial operations at Visakhapatnam Airport ceased on August 16, following the departure of the last flight, IndiGo 6E 2018 to Delhi, at 10.45 pm.
Visakhapatnam Airport ended its scheduled commercial flight operations ahead of the opening of Alluri Sitarama Raju International Airport at Bhogapuram.
The IATA airport code ‘VTZ’ was transferred from Visakhapatnam Airport to the new airport at Bhogapuram with effect from August 17.
On July 28, the Union Aviation Ministry said that all scheduled commercial flight operations at Visakhapatnam Airport shall cease after August 16 for a period of 30 years.
In his PIL, petitioner Gopala Krishna Kosaraju asserted that while the creation of state-of-the-art infrastructure at Bhogapuram was a welcome step, the absolute 30-year operational ban on an existing, fully functional and centrally located public airport was arbitrary and unreasonable.
The plea said that more than Rs 250 crore of public money was invested by the Airports Authority of India (AAI) in developing the Vizag terminal and airside infrastructure in recent years.
“Rendering this asset idle for scheduled commercial use to guarantee commercial exclusivity to a private operator violates the Public Trust Doctrine,” the PIL stated.
