The main legal point established in the judgment is that the petitioners were justified in filing the Public Interest Litigation without sending representation to the appropriate authority, as an exemption was granted for urgent cases. The court also found that the petitioners' plea for capping minimum and maximum airfares by different airline services was maintainable.

N. Paul Vasanthakumar, C.J.

1. This writ petition, by way of Public Interest Litigation, is filed by the petitioners who are permanent residents of Jammu and Kashmir and citizens of India. The first petitioner is President of Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Jammu and the 2nd petitioner is an advocate. According to the petitioners there are four airports in the State of J&K, namely, Jammu, Srinagar, Udhampur and Leh besides different Helipads.

2. The grievances focused by the petitioners are that the airfares must be affordable to maximum passengers including the people living below the poverty line. The price of airline tickets has become increasingly expensive and most airlines are using different rates of pricing to sell the air tickets simultaneously at different segments and in this process the passengers are made to become victims of exploitation by arbitrarily raising their ticket fares. The airfares are changing every day and even every minute. This is a contrast to the plans, the travelers expect on travelling tickets including the tickets purchased in the Tatkal system for train travel. Aero planes and trains are rendering public service, though most of the airlines are owned by private persons and merely because the aircrafts are owned by private persons, they cannot be given license for over-charging. The instances stated in the affidavit are that a passenger was required to pay a sum of Rs. 27,000 for travelling from Delhi to Srinagar and a sum of Rs. 12000 to travel from Jammu to Srinagar and sometimes the travel becomes too agony and the travelers are forced to wait without any justification, which are to be treated as illegal confinement. By virtue of the said unreasonable fixing of air fares the passengers/air travelers, who intend to travel urgently for medical treatments, for joining in professional course after commencing of last date, last date for joining by the newly recruited officer, last date for joining duty after availing leave etc. are very much affected due to said exploitation at the hands of the airlines.

3. It is also stated in the affidavit that Rule 135 of the Aircraft Rules, 1937 empowers the Director General, Civil Aviation to look into the matter including the cost of operation, characteristics of service, reasonable profit and the generally prevailing tariff are stated in the Rules, the same have not been implemented, which is the cause of action for arbitrarily fixing of airfares by different airlines and there is no sealing of airfares which gives unreasonable power to the airlines to fix the airfares. The petitioners have prayed for issuing directions to the respondents to fix the minimum as well as maximum airfares by different airline services for different destinations and to submit a detail report regarding the delay caused in operating each flight meant to provide service to the passengers on-board in order to air-lift them from one place to another in atleast for last six months generally being attributed to technical/environmental or any other reason which forms the basis of missing the connected flights among other reliefs.

4. Respondent Nos.1 to 3 have filed their objections by contending that the public interest litigation filed is not maintainable as no general public interest is involved. It is the choice of the person to travel by air and if any air traveler s right is infringed he can proceed against the airlines for redressal of his grievance before the appropriate forum. There is no compulsion to anybody to travel by air as there are other modes of travel and if one cannot afford airfare he can travel through other modes. The Air Transport Circular No.2 of 2010 was issued with a view to maintain the tariff for air traffic. The said circular was issued for scheduled domestic airlines to display established tariff, route-wise on monthly basis and also to notify to CGCA within 24 hours of effecting such a change. The people living below the poverty