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Nilekani-backed RailYatri booking app unlicensed: HC
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SME Times News Bureau | 19 Apr, 2019
The Delhi High Court has ruled the operations of RailYatri, a mobile
application for train-travel bookings, is unauthorized. The application
is backed by Nandan Nilekani, Omidyar Network, Helion Ventures, and
other well-known angel investors, and it uses deep-analytics technology
to make prediction regarding train bookings.
The travel app
provides comprehensive information about trains, passenger amenities at
stations, platforms and the speed of the train, in addition to
personalized alerts.
Dismissing the writ petitions filed by
Stelling Technologies, which owns and manages the mobile application,
the court said: "on a deeper consideration of the methodology evolved by
M/s Stelling, through its platform railyatri.in connecting the customer
to the RSPs (Retail Service Providers) and booking tickets by
collecting money in its wallet and earning revenue, is surely
unauthorized."
The travel start-up is funded by some top angel
investors, including Infosys co-founder and former chairman of UIDAI
Nandan Nilekani. It had raised its first round of institutional funding
in 2014, led by Blume Ventures, a US-based angel investor. In June 2015,
the company announced a pre-series funding round led by Helion Venture
Partners, along with Omidyar Network and existing investors Blume
Ventures and Ujama. In 2016, Nilekani made an investment in RailYatri.
The
Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) deactivated the
access credentials of Retail Service Providers (RSP), or authorized
agents to its site, who forged an association with the travel app. The
IRCTC has empaneled scores of authorized agents and granted them access
to its software for train bookings. Later, these RSPs associated
themselves with RailYatri for train bookings.
Earlier IRCTC held
monopoly on issuing railway e-tickets, but as demand grew, it floated
various schemes for their sale. Under one scheme, IRCTC appointed
several Principal Service Providers (PSPs) for booking railway tickets
on its website. Each PSPs can engage several hundred agents as RSPs, and
they are bound by rules mandated by IRCTC.
Nikhil Majithia,
advocate for IRCTC, contended before the court that according to the
IRCTC, the services by RailYatri were unauthorized, and the RSPs, by
associating with it, had violated their contractual terms with IRCTC.
Stelling
informed the court that that RailYatri was only an online platform,
which acts as a facilitator between the customer and the RSP, the
authorized agent of IRCTC. Stelling said that the ticket booking was
done by the RSPs using their access credentials, and the site makes
ticket booking easy and offers value-added services too, at a fee at the
rate of 1.25% of the ticket fare.
Majithia pointed out that
IRCTC is the only entity authorized by the Ministry of Railways to
supply e-tickets, and that RSPs are delegated agents of the IRCTC, who
cannot enter into further transactions with third party entities such as
RailYatri.
"IRCTC received complaints from several customers
about non-receipt of refund after cancellations of tickets booked
through RailYatri. We carried out a probe, which revealed the
unauthorized activities of RailYatri, and action was taken against the
RSPs who were associated with the e-commerce portal," said Majithia
rejecting RailYatri's claims in the court.
The court said: "The
petitioner (M/s Stelling) is neither a PSP nor an RSP. It has no privity
of contract with IRCTC. No money has been paid by M/s Stelling to
IRCTC/PSP to be involved in the process of e-ticket booking or to be
integrated in the network initiated/developed by the IRCTC, which
according to this court is a prerequisite to be involved in any manner
in the process of e-ticketing and for which integration fee and annual
maintenance fee is required to be paid."
The Court noted IRCTC
counsel's contention that if such activities are not controlled, huge
amounts of public money would be susceptible to being
siphoned/misappropriated. Majithia said that roughly 6.8 lakh e-tickets
are booked through IRCTC's systems every day with the total amount in
circulation being Rs 81.60 crore.
The court said Stelling can carry on its business only by fulfilling the IRCTC conditions.
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