Refusing to stay the levy and collection of the Airport Development Fee (ADF) by the GMR-led Delhi International Airport, the Supreme Court on Friday referred the case to Airport Economic Regulatory Authority Appellate Tribunal.
DIAL, which has been levying the fee since March 2009, allegedly charges R200 and R1,300 per embarking from domestic and international passengers at the New Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport.
A bench headed by Justice DK Jain referred the matter after the Centre told the court that it had appointed Justice VS Sirpurkar as the chairman of the tribunal, which couldn’t function as it was headless for some time.
It rejected the arguments of counsel Anurag Sharma, appearing for the Consumer Online Foundation (COF), an NGO, that the court should stay the levy and collection of the fee as recovery of the same would be difficult later.
Even another petition filed by the Federation of Indian Airlines (FIA) raising similar issues as that of COF was remanded to the tribunal.
The NGO had alleged that such illegal levy and collection of ADF at the airport, amounting to thousands of crores, should be struck down as the same was quashed by by the apex court in April 26, last year but was allowed by the tribunal.
Questioning the AERA’s authority in determining ADF on private entity DIAL’s plea, the NGO had challenged tribunal’s order that dismissed its plea on the ground of delay in filing the appeal.
COF said that it is AAI that can levy and collect ADF and DIAL cannot assume such powers. AERA in November last year had affirmed the levy which was endorsed by the Ministry of Civil Aviation in February 2009.
