New Delhi, Sep 30 The Delhi High Court on Wednesday sought the stand of the Railways and IRCTC on a PIL alleging "recurring technical and operational failures" while booking train tickets, especially during periods of high demand.
A bench of Chief Justice D K Upadhyaya and Justice Tejas Karia listed the matter for hearing on October 7 and asked the central government counsel to come back with instructions.
"By the time notice is made returnable, the festive season will go and people will keep struggling... Central government counsel to complete instructions in a week," the bench stated.
The petitioner's counsel alleged that at the time of advance reservation, the ticket booking platform lags as soon as the ticketing window opens and, despite deduction of money, people are unable to book a seat.
He alleged that such lags happen more often during the festive season.
The petition by Uttam Kumar sought an independent technical audit of the reservation ecosystem and adoption of appropriate corrective safeguards to ensure fairness, transparency, reliability and non-discriminatory access to railway accommodation.
The plea stated that the issue was not whether every passenger was entitled to a confirmed ticket but whether the official reservation system provided the passengers a "genuine opportunity" to legitimately compete for railway seats available at a given time.
"Publicly available videos, screenshots and complaints annexed with the petition indicate recurring difficulties reported by passengers, including failure to access the booking system, login and authentication difficulties, booking-session termination, payment failures, transaction uncertainty, disappearance or rapid exhaustion of displayed availability and inability to complete otherwise attempted reservations," the plea claimed.
