Nagpur: The Nagpur Bench of Bombay High Court has issued notices to the Ministry of Railways and Railway Board while hearing a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed seeking restoration of concessions in trains tickets.
Earlier, the court had disposed of the PIL No 40/2022 on December 14, 2022, issuing directions to the Railway Board to take a decision on the restoration of concessions within three months, which were withdrawn by the railways vide order dated March 19, 2020 on the backdrop of the slew of measures announced by the Ministry of Railways to discourage the non-essential travel to contain spread of the COVID-19 virus.
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23 April 2025
The PIL was filed by Adv Sundeep S Radhakrishna Badana (39), a resident of Nagpur. The petitioner through this petition endeavours to highlight as to how the respondents had issued an administrative order on March 19, 2020 on the pretext of COVID-19 pandemic and later on planted additional grounds in shape of subsidies given, to indefinitely delay the restoration of concessions and gave the initial administrative order in the shape of a legislative order so as to push the decision into realm of policy-making.
Two additional applications under the Right to Information Act, 2005 were filed with the respondents to highlight the profiteering approach of the state at the expense of social benefits. The petitioner demanded to restore the concessions withdrawn by the respondents for the respective categories by relying on provisions of the ticket and refund rules of the year 2015, which state that no concessional tickets are available only on special trains and also relying on the reply dated September 22, 2021 given by the respondent in response to the representation of the petitioner.
