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The Madras High Court has given an interim stay on the Centre's decision to privatise the Chennai airport.
The court interim stay order restrains the Government of India, Airports Authority of India (AAI), and others from proceeding further on the Request for Qualification (RFQ) invited from private parties.
In his order, Justice R Subbiah, while accepting the Employees Union petition, gave an interim stay on the tender process and posted the matter for February 5.
While questioning the legality of the decision to privatise the airport, both domestic and international terminals, the Employees Union said it would adversely affect them, besides going beyond the jurisdiction of the authority.
"...the Court may be pleased to issue an order of ad-interim injunction, restraining the respondents (Government, AAI and others) from proceeding any further with regard to the RFQ invited from private parties for the management of Chennai airport dated September 3, 2013," according to the employee union's petition. The decision as visualised in the RFQ was beyond the scope of the provisions of the AAI Act, according to the petition, the copy of which is available with Business Standard.
The AAI had originally planned to publish the result of RFQ, which would signal commencement of the bidding process by December-end, but was rescheduled several times.
In mid-2013, the AAI had issued an order under the subject 'infrastructure development', purportedly to implement the report of the Planning Commission, for development, operation and maintenance of identified airports through PPP and created the Key Infrastructure Development Cell.
The employees union said they would lose job security if the facility is privatised, even as the government has assured that no jobs would be lost due to the privatisation.
Around 400 employees from the Airport Authority Employees Union (AAEU) conducted demonstration at the airport on October 8, 2013, restricting the company representatives from entering into the airport.
