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Delhi HC upholds DIAL order on Indigo, SpiceJet shifting operations to T-2

The court's direction came after hearing an appeal by IndiGo and Spicejet challenging the order of Justice AK Chawla who had dismissed the previous petition challenging the Delhi International Airport Limited

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The Delhi High Court upheld the order of the single-judge who had accepted the DIAL's decision to partially shift the operations of private airlines, Indigo and Spicejet, from the Indira Gandhi International Airport's terminal, T-1 to T-2.

A bench of Justice Hima Kohli and Justice Rekha Palli said that they did not find any "illegality, arbitrariness or infirmity in the impugned judgment that warrants interference."

The court's direction came after hearing an appeal by IndiGo and Spicejet challenging the order of Justice AK Chawla who had dismissed the previous petition challenging the Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL's) directions issued in December last year.

While dismissing the plea of Indigo, the bench said that the suggestion that Terminal-1 be dedicated exclusively to its use, while calling upon SpiceJet to move out its entire operations to T-2, is a result of the former's own commercial considerations and has not been made in the larger public good.

"Given the above facts and circumstances, we are of the firm view that the suggestion of the appellants/IndiGo that T-1 be dedicated to exclusively to its use, while calling upon the respondent No.5/SpiceJet to move out its entire operations to T-2, springs from the appellant's own commercial considerations and has not been made in the larger public good.

"Simply because it suits a corporate goliath like the appellants/IndiGo with its voluminous passenger traffic to remain in T-1, will not mean that the respondent No.5/SpiceJet should be boxed in a corner and completely nudged out from T-1, only because its volume of passenger traffic is one fourth that of the appellants," the bench remarked.

The court, however, gave a last opportunity to the airlines to approach DIAL within a week.

The court also said that the relocation is temporary and is being conducted to serve the larger public interest.

" If we may twist the American idiom, "My way or the Highway" to fit the present context, then the appellants/IndiGo cannot be heard to say that it is either their way or the runway. The appellants/IndiGo are tending to forget that this part relocation from T-1 to T-2 proposed by the respondent No.2/DIAL, is only a temporary measure and once T-1 is renovated and commences its operations after capacity building, all the airlines can operate from there full throttle and take wings," the court said.

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