The Hindu : National : IAAI officers move court

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Feb 02, 2006

National

National

IAAI officers move court

J. Venkatesan

They contend that privatisation cannot be done without legislative sanction

New Delhi: The International Airport Authority of India (IAAI) Officers' Association has moved the Supreme Court challenging a Delhi High Court order rejecting its petition questioning the privatisation of the Delhi and Mumbai airports.

The special leave petition by the Association submitted that Parliament enacted the International Airport Authority Act in 1971 and the National Airports Authority Act in 1985 to manage airports where international and domestic services were operated. In 1994, the Airports Authority of India (AAI) Act was passed for cohesive management of airports and civil enclaves where airport services were operated or intended to be operated.

In the last 10 years the AAI had made several strides in the development and modernisation of airports and related services and it had reserves of more than Rs. 2,900 crores. The SLP referred to a report submitted by a parliamentary standing committee that it should be the duty of the Authority to provide air traffic service and to manage the airports.

The petition said employees who were likely to be affected most in the proposed joint venture challenged it and the High Court had erroneously dismissed the petition.

The Association contended that when management of airports had been vested with the Airport Authority of India through an enactment in Parliament, the same could not be changed without legislative sanction. It pointed out that there was no provision in the 1994 Act for entering into any joint venture and hence the same suffered from excessive delegation. However, the Government was going ahead with the formulation of two different joint ventures for the proposed modernisation of the Delhi and Mumbai airports in which the equity participation of private players was pegged at 74 per cent and that of the AAI as well as other public sector undertakings was pegged at 26 per cent. By doing so the existence and control of AAI as envisaged under the Act over the airports was sought to be effaced.

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