On Wednesday, the Delhi High Court turned its focus to the continuing disruption in IndiGo’s operations, questioning the Union government on how a crisis of such scale arose and who must ultimately be held accountable. Over the past nine days, IndiGo has cancelled more than 4,600 flights, leaving thousands of passengers stranded and prompting concerns over the ripple effects on the economy and the aviation market as a whole.
Chief Justice DK Upadhyaya remarked that the situation could not be viewed merely as an inconvenience to individual travellers. “Question is why did such a situation precipitate? Who is responsible? It is not question of individual passengers are stranded at airports. Question is loss to the economy,” the Court observed, pressing the Centre for clarity on the root cause of the operational collapse.
The case arose from a public interest petition filed before the Court, though the Bench expressed displeasure with the way it had been drafted, noting that it “lacks adequate research and evidence and statutory provisions to support prayer.” Still, considering the scale of public hardship, the Court decided to take cognisance of the matter.
The Bench asked the government whether any measures had been taken to compensate affected passengers and to ensure that airline staff were acting responsibly during the crisis. The Court also highlighted the spike in airfares charged by other airlines, observing that “the situation created in the past week has raised an alarm” and that the mass cancellations had “resulted in an unreasonable surge in the fares being charged by the other airlines.”
Although critical of the quality of the petition, the Court recorded that the issue deserved examination in the public interest. It directed the Centre to file its response by December 20, after which the matter will be taken up for further consideration.
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