Supreme Court asks Centre to clarify if refund will be given for tickets booked for air travel during lockdown

The Centre on Wednesday told the Supreme Court that an air travel ticket booked during the Covid-19 lockdown would be refunded irrespective of the fact when it was booked.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta submitted before a bench of Justices Ashok Bhushan, R Subhash Reddy and M R Shah, that suppose a ticket was booked on March 15, that is before the lockdown period, then also full refund would be given.

However, he said that he would file an additional affidavit clarifying the position in this regard.

The court gave him one week's time for the purpose. It also asked the airlines to respond to the proposal given by the Union government and the DGCA on refund of tickets during the flights cancelled due to the lockdown.

The response from Mehta came after senior advocate Sanjay Hegde said that relief should not be limited to people who had booked a ticket during the first lockdown period. He said many people had booked tickets earlier but the flights were cancelled so relief should be irrespective of the date of booking and should not be limited to the lockdown period.

The airlines, for their part, agreed to the refund proposal earlier made by the Centre, giving outer limit of March 2021.

The court put the PIL filed by NGO Pravasi Legal Cell for consideration on September 23.