Delhi high court tells govt to end passengers's woes

The Delhi high court on Tuesday said the railway ministry should take immediate steps to mitigate inconvenience to the large number of people travelling by trains during the summer holidays.

Questioning central government counsel K C Mittal about the ''platinum and gold cards'' issued to certain VIPs, a division bench consisting of Justice A B Saharya and Justice S N Kapoor said, ''All these seats should be given to paying passengers and not reserved for a select few. It is the common people who pay taxes and these facilities should go to them.''

In view of the urgency of the matter, the judges directed the railway ministry to file its reply within one week and the matter be listed for hearing on June 6 even though the court starts its summer vacation on June 1.

''Let us take care of the suffering of the travelling public at the start of the summer season itself,'' the judges told the counsel.

The judges made these observations while hearing a public interest petition filed by Rekha Bhasin complaining of the ''mismanagement'' of the railway reservation system, specially the ''havoc'' caused by touts and reservation of seats for VIPs.

Mittal told the bench that platinum cards were a modified form of the gold cards earlier issued to retired and serving railway board members. These cards enable the members to take two more people along with them in a first class compartment. Unlike the gold cards, which restricted the number of journeys for retired members to three, the platinum cards impose no such restriction, the counsel told the judges.

The judges wanted to know from Mittal why the restriction on the number of journeys had been removed. Observing that a ''reasonable restriction'' should be there, the judges wondered whether the facility was meant to increase the efficiency of the railway officers or was merely a ''status symbol''.

The judges told Mittal to incorporate in his reply answers to the following queries: whether any special summer trains have been announced, and if so, how many; whether the platinum and gold cards are given only to railway board members or others also; the reason for removing the restrictions on the number of journeys in the platinum card; whether the officials use the special salons reserved for railway employees while travelling on duty and if so, where is the need to issue cards; the percentage of seats in the special 'quota' reserved for the railway regional headquarters; the number of 'free passes''being issued to certain individuals.

Counsel Ashok Bhasin appearing for the petitioner said immediate steps were called for to check the activities of ''touts'' at reservation counters. The judges asked Mittal why the railway ministry did not seek the assistance of social service organisations to keep touts at bay.

UNI