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Stop ‘illegal fee’ collection by Delhi airport, CPM urges PM
The CPI(M) on Thursday urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to immediately stop the “dubious action” of Delhi airport management to renew collection of “illegal Development Fee” from December 1.
Pointing out the violation of Parliamentary privilege and manipulation of Supreme Court order prohibiting the collection of fee earlier, the Left party asked the Government to recover the previously collected amount of around Rs1500 crore from the Delhi International Airport, run by GMR Group.
“As per Parliamentary procedure, rules will come into force only after they are adopted by Parliament,” KN Balagopal, CPI(M) member of Rajya Sabha, said in a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
He said an amendment to the proposed Airport Authority of India (Major Airports) Development Fees Rules 2011, moved by him, has been accepted by Rajya Sabha Chairman Hamid Ansari as a Statutory Motion and has listed it in the agenda.
“This means, the rules have not been finalised or accepted by Parliament and so the rules are not enforceable yet.This is in violation of administrative and parliamentary procedures and, importantly, is also a violation of Parliamentary privileges,” the MP said and urged the Prime Minister to urgently intervene in the matter and “direct the concerned authorities to stop collection of Development Fee”.
In a recent order, the Airports Economic Regulatory Authority allowed DIAL to levy Rs200 from domestic and Rs1,300 from international passengers from December 1.
Pointing out the “illegality” of collection of fee and prohibition by the Supreme Court few months back, the CPI(M) MP demanded the Prime Minister seizure of the previously collected fee by airport management.
“An amount of Rs1481.72 crore was collected without any legal provision. The Supreme Court in a judgement had directed Delhi International Airport Limited to stop this illegal collection,” said Balagopal.
