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Monday, October 5, 2026

NEWS TODAY 05.10.2026

Private bus operator urges High Court to declare ‘Vettri Payanam’ unconstitutional

The writ petition has been listed for hearing before the First Division Bench of Chief Justice Sushrut Arvind Dharmadhikari and Justice G. Arul Murugan on Monday.

Mohamed Imranullah S.

CHENNAI 05.10.2026

A writ petition has been filed in the Madras High Court challenging the constitutional validity of the Tamil Nadu government’s ‘Vettri Payanam’ (victorious travel) scheme, which offers no-fare travel for women and transwomen passengers in 12,695 government buses across the State.

A private bus operator, N. Kalamani of Bhavani taluk in Erode district, has approached the court complaining that the scheme would cause private transporters heavy losses, and they might have to wind up their business. The petitioner said private bus operators would not only stand to lose women passengers but also the men because families would prefer travelling together in government buses in which the women need not pay any fare.

The writ petition, urging the court to declare ‘Vettri Payanam’ unconstitutional, has been listed for hearing before the First Division Bench of Chief Justice Sushrut Arvind Dharmadhikari and Justice G. Arul Murugan on Monday.

Explaining her case in detail, the petitioner said she was a widow who had two daughters to take care of. She held permits to operate buses on the 47-km route from Erode to Vellithiruppur and another on the 88-km route from Kakapalayam to Anthiyur.

The petitioner had employed about 15 people and their families, too, were dependant on her business. She feared that hardly any passenger would step into her buses on the two routes since a significant number of government buses were operated on those routes.

She said the government had come forward to spend a whopping ₹6,000 crore a year on compensating the State Transport Corporations towards ‘Vettri Payanam’ aimed at benefitting 84.32 lakh women daily. However, a request made by the Federation of Bus Operators Associations of Tamil Nadu to Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay on July 22, 2026, for extending the scheme to private bus operators did not yield the desired result, she claimed.

Ms. Kalamani said not collecting any fare from women passengers in government buses alone would go against the principle of ensuring a level playing field in the bus transport sector and thereby violate Article 14 (right to equality) of the Constitution. Though ‘Vettri Payanam’ was an expansion of the ‘Vidiyal Payanam’ scheme introduced by the previous DMK government, the petitioner said the previous scheme was limited in its scope and did not affect the private operators to a great extent.

‘Fares mandatory’

The petitioner also relied upon various provisions of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988, as well as the Tamil Nadu Motor Vehicle Rules, 1989, to contend that collection of fare from the passengers was mandatory and the government could not announce no-fare travel. Further, claiming that the scheme had been implemented on the basis of an announcement made by the Chief Minister under Rule 110 in the Assembly and without any Government Order, the petitioner said such an act offends Article 161 of the Constitution.

She urged the court to declare the Chief Minister’s announcement, published by the Information and Public Relations Department (DIPR) on August 24, 2026, as unconstitutional and also grant an interim stay on it until the disposal of her writ petition.