The Madras High Court has directed the Ministry of Civil Aviation to file a counter on a petition filed by the worker union of the Chennai airport. The union has been opposing privatisation of the airport claiming it will affect them.

The union said that there was no point in privatisation when the Airports Authority of India had spent over ₹2,000 crore to upgrade the airport.

A Division Bench comprising Justice SK Agnihotri and Justice M Venugopal directed the Centre represented by Additional Solicitor General of India G Rajagopalan and the Civil Aviation Ministry to file the counter in the Amendment Petition sought by the petitioner (the union) on a new request for qualification from private bidders dated December 30, 2014.

The Bench posted the matter to next hearing on March 20, said union sources.

They added that their counsel V Prakash argued the union cannot oppose the policy decision of the Government but can urge the Court to protect their rights.

Employee rights

Senior Standing Counsel for the Centre R Maheshwari said that in the RFQ, there is a clause to protect employee rights. However, it was too early to list out the specifics. Chennai Airport totally handled 1.06 crore passengers and 10,104 aircraft movements between April and December 2014.

The Centre plans to hand over four airports – Chennai, Kolkata, Ahmedabad and Jaipur – to private players to operate, manage and develop them. A pre-application conference was held in Delhi on February 11.

Last week, the Airports Authority of India invited representatives from eight prospective bidders, including Siemens Project Ventures GmbH, GVK Airport Holdings, GMR Airport Holdings and Tata Realty and Infrastructure Ltd, to showcase the infrastructure.

Deepak Shastri, Chennai Airport Director, gave a detailed presentation about the airport and its growth.

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