Ex-judge to head expert committee on omnibus fare
MADURAI: The Madurai Bench of Madras High Court has directed the State to constitute an expert committee under former Madras High Court judge K N Basha to make recommendations to help notify omnibus fares.
Omnibuses are only contract carriages and the operators are illegally allowed to collect fares. A division bench of Justices S Nagamuthu and M V Muralidaran on Tuesday directed the government, which had turned a blind eye to the ‘illegality’ for decades, not to permit omnibus operators and their agents to collect individual fares and to take legal action against violators. They were hearing a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) taken up suo motu based on media reports on fleecing by omnibus operators.
While operators’ counsels argued that the agents collect individual fares not their clients, the judges refused to buy the argument, saying, “It is crystal clear that what could not be done by the operators cannot be done by their agents. Therefore, neither the contract carriage operator nor his licensed agent could collect individual fares.”
Admitting that collecting individual fare is illegal, the Special Government Pleader (SGP) pointed out that the authorities could not take action against violators for two reasons — one, the government has not fixed fares despite provisions under section 67 of the Motor Vehicles (MV) Act, 1988, and another due to the State Transport Appellate Tribunal setting aside the orders seeking to cancel permits of the omnibuses which have violated the rules.