CHENNAI: THE Madras High Court has ordered four-weeks notices to the Airports Authority of India (AAI), Civil Aviation Department (CAD) and others on a writ petition seeking to declare ‘app’ based pickups at airport terminals as arbitrary, illegal and void.Justice M Duraiswamy issued the notices when a petition from Chennai Airport Prepaid Meter Taxi Owner-Drivers Union came up on Tuesday.
According to the petitioner, its members are paying nearly `14 lakh per month towards space rent for parking their vehicles at the airport campus at Chennai and towards royalty charges to the airport authorities. While so, on September 8 last, the authorities issued a letter to the union stating that it proposed to facilitate operation of OLA and UBER services inside the terminal for pickups.
Petitioner contended that the AAI had not followed the principles of natural justice while taking such a drastic step primarily sub-serving their commercial interests. The authorities had not considered their representations stating that its members would be put to severe loss.The union further said their members are involved only in the airport pickups of air passengers on collection of uniform charges as fixed by authorities concerned.