Touting incidents bring bad name to country: Court

Incidents of touting diminish the country's reputation and bring a bad name to it, a Delhi court has observed while convicting a man for enticing passengers at the IGI Airport here.
Metropolitan Magistrate Pankaj Sharma held Nangloi resident Rakesh guilty of enticing passengers by offering them cheap services oftaxiand hotels and harassing them. He was fined Rs 2,000 by the court.
The court also expressed anguish over the absence of adequate policemen outside the airport which encourages unlawful activities by such law breakers.
"Such incident of touting also diminishes the reputation and brings bad name to our country in the world", the court observed and said "it is high time that effective police mechanism should be introduced to avoid this menace."

The court said it was disheartening that despite conviction of several touts under the Delhi Prevention of Touting andMalpracticesagainst Tourists Ordinance Act, the situation has not changed and "still these illegal practices are going on with a full swing at the Airport".
"It is in common knowledge of everyone that in airport, outside arrival hall, several unscrupulous TSR and cab driver allure passengers of cheap hotel, low fare and other benefits and in most cases they misbehave with the passengers who do not fall prey to their allurements and generally passengers avoid police action ... To avoid their future trouble.

"These people annoy the passengers in front of their families and friends thereby reducing the joy of their journey and exposing them to all sort of dangers. These illegal activities also show lack of effective policing," it said.

In these circumstances, the role of police assumes significance and stern and preventive action was needed to stop these illegal activities in sophisticated places like airport where people from all over the world come.
According to the prosecution, Rakesh was found enticing passengers outside the domestic terminal of IGI Airport on May 28, 2014, by offering them cheap taxi and hotel services and thereby harassing them.

He was caught by a police official while taking passengers in his taxi, it said. During trial, Rakesh claimed that he was innnocent.