The Madras High Court today dismissed a PIL seeking a directive to Metro Rail administrators to reduce the fares and fix it on par with that of suburban electric trains in the city.
A Division Bench comprising justices K K Sasidharan and R Subramanian, which dismissed the petition by M G R Viswanathan, in its order said, "the petitioner has not shown that there was infringement of his fundamental rights."
"Merely because, Chennai Metro has been adopting a fare structure, which is high compared to the fare collected by suburban trains or other countries, it cannot be said that a situation has come for the high court to interfere in the matter," it said.
"In short, it is not the function of the court to decide the correctness of the fare structure evolved by the Metro Rail. We are therefore of the view that the writ petition filed by the petitioner deserves to be dismissed in limine," the bench said.
In his PIL, Viswanathan claimed that the BJP in its election manifesto had promised to fix fares of the Chennai Metro Rail on par with the suburban train fares.
He also submitted that the fare from Chennai Central (Park) to Tirusulam (city airport, a 18-km stretch) is only Rs five in suburban trains, whereas it was Rs 60 for services operated by the Metro Rail between Central and the airport.
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