Should the Supreme Court regulate your flight ticket fares?

By Bhavin Patel and Khushi Singh

Welcome to The Bridge! India’s regulators affect markets, govern disputes, and test the rule of law through their orders, regulations, and policy implementation actions. Yet the quality of this work rarely gets the scrutiny it deserves. The Bridge is TrustBridge’s window into India’s regulatory state: how it decides, how it regulates, and how it could do both better.

There does not appear to be consensus on whether governments should regulate how much flight tickets cost: While some countries like the United States and Canada have chosen to completely deregulate air transport,1 the Chinese government retains some control over air fares.2 Even where regulation is accepted, methods vary, from price floors and ceilings and route-specific interventions to mandatory disclosures. What we can agree on, however, is that choosing whether and how to regulate air fares is essentially a matter of economic policy, which falls within the domain of the executive.

In India, airlines can decide the airfares on their own as per dynamic pricing and operational needs; the law requires that airlines publish these airfares, and if the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (the “DCGA”) believes that they are excessive or predatory, it can issue “directions” to airlines.3 Some suggest this means that the DCGA can also regulate airfares in exceptional situations.4 As of now, DGCA’s engagement has been limited to supervising fare declarations through its Tariff Monitoring Unit, which analyses airfare trends on key routes, and flags potential cases of exploitative pricing.5

In a recent Public Interest Litigation (“PIL”) filed before it, the Supreme Court will likely have to address whether these measures are adequate. In S. Laxminarayanan v. Union of India & Ors,6 (“S. Laxminarayanan”) the petitioner argued that the “DGCA’s oversight is inadequate” and that the regulatory vacuum necessitates guidelines to control airfares, and the establishment of a new regulator to address price exploitation. In a curious move on 13 July 2026, the Court directed the government to present its unpublished rules framed under the Bhartiya Vayuyan Adhiniyam, 2024 (the “BVA”) inside a sealed envelope, “irrespective of the fact whether they are placed before the Houses of Parliament or not.”7

What might the Court be trying to achieve with this order? The one-page order does not provide a clear explanation. So, in this post, we postulate two potential objectives of this order and explore their implications on the separation of powers.

From the order, it appears that the Central Government argued that the Supreme Court should wait to intervene until they have published rules under the BVA. Under the BVA, the Central Government has the discretion to make rules on “approval, disapproval or revision on tariff of operators of air transport services.”8 The Central Government informed the Court that the rules are currently being translated, after which they must be presented before Parliament. The Court however sided with the petitioner, who argued that placing the rules before Parliament is an ex post check and that the Court need not wait until that happens. Curiously, the Court seems to have ignored the fact that the rules are not even published in the Official Gazette yet.

In the absence of any reasons for why the Supreme Court wants to look at unpublished rules in a sealed envelope, we suggest this action might stem from one of two potential motives. Both bode ill for the principle of separation of powers—a “basic feature of the Constitution and an essential constituent of the rule of law”.9

The first potential motive could be to review the validity of the unpublished rules under the BVA before they are publicised. This would be an unprecedented encroachment into the Central Government’s domain. Nothing in the law allows the Supreme Court to review rules before their publication in the official gazette. The function of the courts is to adjudicate and resolve disputes, interpreting the law as necessary in the process. A review of unpublished rules would essentially mean evaluating Central Government proposals which do not yet have the force of law. In the Supreme Court’s own words, “[t]he constitutional scheme does not permit the judiciary to prescribe the text of a law or to mandate that Parliament adopt a specific policy choice.”10

If the Supreme Court makes any pronouncement on the shape and form of the unpublished regulations, the Central Government will most likely have no option but to go along with that decision. When Parliament enacted the Tribunals Reform Act, 2021 in disregard of the Supreme Court’s judgment in Madras Bar Association v. Union of India (2021),11 the Court reminded Parliament that it could not override or contradict judicial decisions.12 The Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Constitution constitutes a binding declaration of law.13 At best, Parliament can only cure the identified defect identified in a manner consistent with the Court’s pronouncements.14

While the Madras Bar Association ruling was with respect to Parliament, a similarly placed Central Government would also be bound by the Court’s decision. The possibility of the Court’s judicial review of the unpublished rules raises other concerns as well: if the Central Government amends these rules in line with the Court’s decision prior to publication, would individuals later be able challenge those rules? Or would the Court’s pre-publication review and the Government’s amendments, if any, effectively shield the rules from any further challenge? We are not aware of any constitutional mechanism that permits such an ‘advance blessing’ system for delegated legislation.15

The second possibility is that the Court wants to nudge the government into publishing the rules. Even this counts as tip-toeing across the executive’s boundary. The BVA says that the Central Government retains the discretion over whether to publish rules on air fares. The choice to not make any new rules on air fares is as legitimate a policy choice as the choice to make such rules. Although indirect, the Court exerting pressure on the Central Government to act constitutes interference at best, and at worst, amounts to deciding the matter of whether to regulate air fares, an out-and-out policy decision, completely outside the Court’s remit. Perhaps it would have been better for the Court to restrict itself to questioning the Central Government on whether they intend to make rules on airfares, instead of rendering the matter moot by asking for unpublished rules to be placed before it.

Regardless of the motive, the method itself is problematic. The Supreme Court has itself in the past expressed contempt towards review of material in sealed envelopes because of the opacity of the process.16 Judicial propriety demands the Court clarify why such an exceptional process is both necessary and urgent in this instance, particularly when it precedes parliamentary review. Surely this should not happen in the form of a one-page unreasoned order.

Whether driven by a desire to pre-screen unpublished rules or compel executive action, the Supreme Court’s order in S. Laxminarayanan seems a troubling example of judicial overreach. The Court should stick to its established principle of judicial restraint in economic policy.17 Its prior jurisprudence wisely acknowledges a lack of competence and expertise to decide upon such economic issues, as well as its inability to assess the impact of a particular action.18 As the case moves forward, we hope that the Supreme Court does not escalate and adjudicate a broad policy agenda simply because an individual petitioner framed an economic policy concern in terms of fundamental rights. If the Court’s intention does not extend to stepping into the Executive’s policy-making domain, the least it should do is clearly articulate reasons for orders as perplexing as the one it made in its single-page pronouncement.

P.S. The Supreme Court issued another order in this matter on 7 August 2026: that order grants the Central Government more time to produce the unpublished rules. On 17 August 2026, after this post was written, the Court opened the envelope and looked at the unpublished rules. Counsel for the Union sought time to finalise the draft rules. Reportedly, Counsel informed the Court that the rules were still under discussion.

- The authors are researchers at TrustBridge, and would like to thank Pratik Datta for his feedback.

CITATION

Bhavin Patel and Khushi Singh, 2026. “Should the Supreme Court regulate your flight ticket fares?”, The Bridge, TrustBridge Rule of Law Foundation

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Aircraft Rules, 1937, Rule 137.

Balco Employees’ Union v. Union of India, (2002) 2 SCC 333.

Bharatiya Vayuyan Adhiniyam, 2024, section 10(2)(c).

Bhavesh D. Parish v. Union of India, (2000) 5 SCC 471.

Douglas McDonald-Norman and Arun K. Thiruvengadam, “Supreme Court holds the line against executive-legislative attempts to control tribunals” (Supreme Court Observer, 22 December 2025)

In Re: Kartikeya Rawal and InterGlobe Aviation Ltd, Case No. 44 of 2025 (CCI, 4 February 2026).

Kalinga Mining Corporation v. Union of India, Civil Appeal No. 1013/2013 (order dated 07.02.2013)

Madhyamam Broadcasting Limited v. Union of India & Ors, 2023 INSC 324.

Madras Bar Association v. Union of India (2021), (2022) 12 SCC 455.

Madras Bar Assn. (6) v. Union of India, (2026) 2 SCC 1.

Prag Ice & Oil Mills v. Union of India, (1978) 3 SCC 459.

Rajya Sabha’s Department-related Parliamentary Standing Committee on Transport, Tourism and Culture, ‘Issue of Fixing of Airfare’ (353rd Report) (10 August 2023).

R.K. Garg v. Union of India, (1981) 4 SCC 675.

S. Laxminarayanan v. Union of India & Ors, WP(C) 1124/2025 (order dated 13 July 2026).

State of T.N. v. State of Kerala, (2014) 12 SCC 696.

Su Wu, “China Says It Is Not Restricting Airlines From Selling Low Fares” (Simple Flying, 23 February 2023).

Vivek Narayan Sharma (Demonetisation Case-5 J.) v. Union of India, (2023) 3 SCC 1.