The Bombay high court on Wednesday gave an ultimatum to the Union Government to decide on the formation of the Fare Fixation Committee (FFC) which will finalise fares for the Mumbai Metro by September 30.
A division bench of chief justice Mohit Shah and justice MS Sonak has asked the union government to file its affidavit by September 1 and inform the steps being taken by it for formation of the FFC.
"If the Fare Fixation Committee is not appointed and does not take a decision (of FFC's appointment) till September 30, the court will consider the prayer on behalf of Mumbai Metro One Private Ltd (MMOPL) for fare collection," observed the bench.
Meanwhile, counsels for RInfra and MMOPL (a joint venture between RInfra and MMRDA) , Iqbal Chagla and Janak Dwarkadas respectively, informed HC that they would continue the promotional fares of Rs 10, Rs15 and Rs 20 till September 30.
Accepting the statement, the HC has said that if the FFC is not in place by September 30 then MMOPL will have the right to charge fares it had fixed at the time of opening of the metro rail.
MMOPL had initially agreed to charge promotional fares till July 31, which will not be changed till the end of September.
The HC is hearing an appeal filed by MMRDA, challenging the previous single-bench order of the HC denying the State government the right to decide fares of the recently launched Mumbai Metro. MMRDA had previously challenged the fare hike announced by Reliance Infra.
Justice R D Dhanuka had last month dismissed MMRDA's petition on the grounds that the MMOPL had the right to decide the initial fares till the Fare Fixation Committee arrived at a figure.
RInfra and MMOPL have contended that despite their communication to the authorities concerned in November 2013, the FFC has not been set up as yet.
According to MMRDA, the consortium had agreed on the structure under which fares were to be Rs Nine (upto 3 kms), Rs 11 (from 3 to 8 kms) and Rs 13 (for more than 8 kms).
MMOPL has however fixed the initial fares as Rs 10, Rs 20, Rs 30 and Rs 40.
The single judge while refusing to stay the metro fares had observed: "Perusal of the agreement (between the parties), indicates that the MMOPL is empowered to fix the fares till decided by the FFC. Prima facie, the fares at the time of opening is to be fixed by respondent 3 (MMOPL) and not by the state government."
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