5 months ago
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The Madras High Court connected Monday (January 19, 2026) directed Chennai Metro Rail Limited (CMRL) to behaviour astonishment inspections successful Metro trains and instrumentality due enactment to guarantee that elder citizens and persons with disabilities (PwDs) are not denied the precedence seats earmarked for them.
The First Division Bench of Chief Justice Manindra Mohan Shrivastava and Justice G. Arul Murugan besides directed CMRL to initiate due enactment if it receives circumstantial complaints from elder citizens and persons with disabilities regarding the same.
The orders were passed portion disposing of a nationalist involvement litigation (PIL) petition filed by advocator V.B.R. Menon, who insisted that a tenable fig of seats successful each Metro bid indispensable beryllium reserved exclusively for elder citizens and persons with disabilities, conscionable arsenic however an full manager successful each bid is reserved for women.
He told the tribunal that CMRL’s signifier of pasting stickers connected prime seats successful each coach, stating they indispensable beryllium offered connected a precedence ground to elder citizens and passengers with disabilities, does not help, arsenic those seats are astir ever occupied by able-bodied men.
Complaining that a bulk of these men bash not vacate the seats for elder citizens and passengers with disabilities, the petitioner said that the occupation tin beryllium resolved lone if specified passengers were provided with reserved seats, which cannot beryllium occupied by anyone else.
“There is simply a quality betwixt precedence seating and earmarking seats exclusively for the usage of elder citizens and the physically challenged. What is being done present by CMRL is lone to connection precedence seating, not earmarking seats exclusively for the usage of specified passengers,” Mr. Menon told the court.
On the different hand, State Government Pleader A. Edwin Prabakar told the tribunal that able-bodied men tin beryllium connected the seats earmarked for elder citizens/PwDs lone erstwhile specified passengers are not present. Otherwise, those seats indispensable beryllium offered to elder citizens/PWDs.
He said that passengers tin ever lodge complaints via the intercom disposable successful each manager of the Metro trains and that indispensable enactment volition beryllium taken to get them seated. “CMRL has besides begun to marque oral announcements regarding the seats earmarked for elder citizens and the physically challenged,” helium said.
After proceeding some sides, the judges said, it would beryllium up to the CMRL to see the suggestions made by the petitioner regarding preservation of seats for the exclusive usage of elder citizens and persons with disabilities. Until then, astonishment inspections indispensable beryllium carried retired and indispensable enactment indispensable beryllium initiated, the Bench stated.
