The shadow of Jet Airways’ shutting down in April this year is still cast over some. Online travel portal MakeMyTrip (MMT), has dragged HDFC Bank to the Delhi High Court over a tickets refund issue, as per an Economic Times report. MMT had taken ticket bookings on its platform for its customers to travel by Jet.
But since the airline suddenly grounded its flights without prior notice, these customers were stuck with tickets which had no value. They had paid for the fares using their credit or debit cards. Now HDFC Bank has been refunding the full value of the tickets to its bank customers who had used HDFC Bank issued credit/debit cards and deducting those amounts from MMT’s account with the bank.
MMT has dragged HDFC to Delhi High Court over this. The legal point raised by MMT is that as per aviation rules and practices, any refund to flyers has to be given by the airline and MMT has no liability to refund the cost of the tickets since it acted only as a facilitator and had remitted the cost of the tickets to Jet Airways’ account.
The counter argument by HDFC Bank is that it is going purely by the merchant agreement it has with MMT and as per that, the bank was within its rights to deduct the refunds it had paid to the customers.
Delhi HC has issued an interim order to HDFC Bank to keep the amounts involved in a separate suspense account till the final orders are passed. This position will continue at least until the next hearing fixed for January 2020.
This could turn into a classic case since the contesting parties are relying on two different rules. The HDFC Bank may not be concerned with the practices in the airline industry and would want to follow the agreement it has entered into with the merchant establishments which honour its credit and debit cards.