Karnataka High Court notice to BMRCL on Tejasvi’s plea to make fare fixation panel’s report  

The High Court of Karnataka on Monday ordered issue of notice to the Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Ltd, and the State and Central governments on a petition filed by L.S Tejasvi Surya, MP, Bengaluru South constituency, seeking direction to BMRCL to make public the report of Fare Fixation Committee (FFC) of metro rail based on which metro fares were increased in February this year.

Justice S. Sunil Dutt Yadav passed the order after MP’s advocate pointed out to the court that BMRCL did not upload a copy of the FFC report on its website or provided a copy of the report to the general public or the media organisation, who have sought a copy of the report through RTI Act.

It has been contended in his petition that BMRCL being a joint venture between the Union government and the Government of Karnataka that uses public funds has a constitutional duty to function transparently without claiming immunity from its obligation to disclose the FFC report when the decision to hike fare affects the general public, steps from the FFC report.

Also, the MP pointed in the petition that in the past, Delhi, Mumbai and Hyderabad metro rail corporations have duly published such reports on their websites for the benefit of general public thereby reflecting transparency in public governance and decision-making process.

Stating that there exists no distinguishing factor between BMRCL and other metro rail corporations to justify BMRCL’s refusal to publish the FFC report, it has been contended in the petition that the report being a ministerial act requiring no exercise of discretion at the hands of BMRCL, no discretionary power can be claimed by it to withhold publication as no such provision exists in the Metro Railways (Operation and Maintenance) Act, 2022. The FFC was headed by R. Tharani, a retired judge of the Madras High Court.