RESOURCES OF AVIATION REDRESSAL ASSOCIATION Vs. UOI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) IN these two writ petitions the controversy that emerges for consideration being similar, they were heard together and disposed of by a singular order.

(2.) WE may not with profit that W.P.(C) No.3889/2011 has been preferred by Resources of Aviation Redressal Association and W.P.(C) No.3893/2011 is at the instance of Consumer Online Foundation. It is apt to note, both the associations have preferred the writ petitions as pro bono publico basically praying for issue of a writ of certiorari for quashment of the public notice dated 23rd April, 2010 issued by the Airports Economic Regulatory Authority of India (for short, the authority') under the Airports Economic Regulatory Authority of India Act, 2008 (for brevity, the 2008 Act') on the foundation that such a determination could not have been made by the said authority without following the procedure postulated under Section 13 of the Act and that apart the concept of ad- hoc determination is not contemplated under the purview of the provisions of the Act.

(3.) THUS, it is manifest the Apex Court has expressed the view that once the development fee is received under Section 22A of the 1994 Act, which has the character of cess or tax, it cannot be levied by the executive fiat and accordingly came to hold as follows:-