Delhi: Court raps DTC for penalising conductors

New Delhi: A city court has struck down Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC)'s order of imposing fine on its conductors in an event of ticket-less travellers being found in its buses.

The court also noted that the DTC's decision to "discipline its conductors" was taken in a meeting which lacked quorum and termed it as "illegal, unreasonable and non-est" in the eyes of the law.

The DTC had in December last year introduced the rule increasing the penalty for the conductors to Rs 75 per ticket-less passenger from earlier Rs 10, stating that it will keep its errant employees in discipline and generate revenue.

Rapping DTC for its decision, Civil Judge Kishore Kumar said, "The stand taken by the defendants (DTC) that to generate finance from the erring conductors by way of increment of penalty to Rs 75 is something unusual to the service conditions and also unusual to the Labour Laws." Although the Tis Hazari civil court's order came on August 2 last month, the DTC is still prosecuting conductors with a fine of Rs 75, alleged DTC Employees Congress, an umbrella body of corporation employees.

In its order, court also said, "Such order are illegal, unreasonable and non-est in the eyes of law and hereby declared as null and void. "The defendants (DTC) are permanently restrained from acting on these office orders."

The court also added that "The DTC's counsel had no answer as to where it is provided in the rules/regulations or in the law that out of seven directors if, only five or for that matter four were available, they made a corum and were competent to bring in changes or amendments in the penalties for regulating the conduct of the employees."

The DTC's employee association alleged that DTC has been violating the court's order. "DTC has been imposing penalty on conductors, which is in clear violation of court's order. We have in possession several show cause notices with regard to deducting such amount from conductors' salaries.

"If a conductor is fined five times a month, how can he run his family," DTC Employees Congress president Ramesh Vats said. DTC's CMD Debashree Mukherjee and spokesperson RS Minhas did not respond to queries on the matter despite several attempts.