Abstract

Transportation and logistics is the lifeline of modern economic frameworks, so any kind of transportation delays, such as flight cancellations, railway delays, metro breakdowns, and road transport accidents etc., have the potential to jolt the economy as well as the general public. The widespread harm caused to individuals, though, seems fragmented, but the commonality of grievance and service availed makes them a ‘class’ seeking redressal. This group action mechanism in India has remained problematic since the beginning, offering modest compensations without any substance for deterrence on the part of corporations. Indian framework on such actions is backed by a few statutory provisions which involve procedural complexity, higher pre-requisites, expensive litigation, and limited relief, thereby discouraging its prevalence, leading to redundancy. To safeguard the rights of individuals, the government must implement measures to resolve present challenges so that the constitutional ethos of justice, equality, and accountability gains relevance in the economy. This piece examines the relevance and potential of class action litigation as an effective mechanism for addressing transportation delays in India through analysis of existing legal framework, inherent limitations and necessary reforms to realize the significance of such actions in fostering a free and liberal economic state.

Introduction                                

Transportation infrastructure is the backbone of a nation’s economy that serves as a means for convenient public mobility, along with a business model for service providers. India, like every other nation, relies on several mass transportation frameworks ranging from urban mass transit systems, railways, to civil aviation, wherein millions of passengers commute on a periodical basis on a system contemplated to be reliant on the ethos of efficiency, value, affordability, safety, and utility. However, these expectations are hard to meet in India, where transportation delays such as flight cancellations, delayed train arrival, metro breakdown and frequent bus accidents have been admitted as a common phenomenon in the entire system. Such occurrences impact a large number of passengers simultaneously, causing deterioration of public trust coupled with extensive financial and emotional loss. Despite the shared nature of harm, the concerted legal redress in such cases has remained individual-centric, founded on separate complaints with separate nominal compensation, which undermines the scale of disruption caused to passengers. In this light, the domain of Class Action Litigation gains relevance, whereby the shared grievances are redressed at a widespread level that culminates in efficiency, greater accountability, and protection of passenger rights.

Class Actions in Indian Law: Concept and Scope

Class Actions or Class Action litigation is an innovative legal framework that allows representation of mass grievances through some representatives sharing common harm, leading to a larger claim and more determined assertion of collective rights. Though lacking a proper class statute, unlike the US (Rule 23 of the US Federal Rules of Civil Procedure), its presence could be traced primarily to Order I Rule 8 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, which allows representative suits in cases where numerous people share the ‘same interest’ in the matter. This has been supplemented by Section 245 of the Companies Act 2013 (collective action by aggrieved members against the company and its officials), Section 35(1)(c) of the Consumer Protection Act 2019 (one or more consumers can file a complaint on behalf of other similarly placed ones), and the expansion of the idea of Public Interest Litigation. Despite the profound success of this model in the US and UK, class actions have failed to reach their tipped potential due to doctrinal and procedural constraints in India. Representative suits are cumbersome in procedure, consumer class actions are rarely invoked, class actions under the Companies Act are often limited to a private set of individuals, and PILs are viewed and utilized as a tool of protection of rights and policy compliance instead of compensation. In regulated service sectors like transportation, which involve a dedicated framework for efficiency and safety, this fragmented approach serves no purpose.

Transportation Delays as Collective Harm and Relevance of Class Action

Transportation disruption (delay, accident, etc.) is quite different from other isolated service failures primarily due to its scale, predictability, and systematic origins. Consider the recent fiasco of Indigo flight disruption (cancellation of 5000+ flights, leaving thousands of passengers stranded at airports), or annual winter fog rail delays, or incidents of technical glitches in metros; these occurrences remind the periodicity of such disruptions impacting the general public in their lives, interconnected schedules, employment, healthcare, and economic endeavors. Such harms involve both pecuniary and non-pecuniary harm (mental distress, anxiety) and sometimes a threat to health and life. Passengers being collectively affected are joiners of the same interest, so such grievances call for class action instead of viewing them as mere individualistic concerns.

For every mode of transportation, different regulations and procedures exist, providing separate realms for prospects of a class action. Take, for instance, the Indian aviation industry governed primarily by the Aircraft Act, 1934, Montreal Convention (for international carriage), and Civil Aviation Requirements (CARs) issued by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) with respect to passenger obligations involving compensation for delays and cancellations. In spite of such clear measures for delays, enforcement often fails to redress every aggrieved passenger due to DGCA guidelines requiring individual complaints, which places a burden on passengers to support their own case instead of collective action. Even under consumer law, where airlines have been recognized as service providers prone to liability in case of  deficiency in service, group claims have not been encouraged to date, which is in sharp contrast with the position in the US, wherein the class actions in the aviation industry accounted for asettlement fee of $70 billion in class suits in 2025. This framework is quite developed due to an early inception during the 1960s, bolstered by the introduction of a comprehensive Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23 in 1966 that dealt with such claims in detail, recognizing its essential elements such as commonality of interest, no possibility of realistic joinders, adequacy in protecting the interest of the class, etc. This rule was critical for the development of the class representation regime as it provided for a strong opt-out mechanism allowing even absent members to be part of the entire action unless they voluntarily exclude themselves. The US model also succeeds due toa sophisticated settlement scheme with judicial oversight, contingency fee incentives for advocates (facilitating greater motivation for their service),non-inclusion of adverse costs even in case of a loss, and continuous expansion by courts imbibing modern problems of price fixing, deceptive marketing, and other unfair practices within the scope of  such actions.  In the recent flights disruptions, Indigo only paid refunds for tickets and meagerRs 10000 travel vouchers compensation to only ‘severely impacted customers’. The absence of collective action led to the undermining of the financial liability of the company towards passengers, which does not serve as a deterrent against such future disruptions. A class action could have presented a more collaborative case, leading to a stricter response from the airline in terms of compensation, which, in the instant case, was reduced only to the discretion of the airline. This way, the class action in the aviation industry is an untapped potential that has the ability to act as a concrete negotiator and representative of passengers’ concerns in a more formidable way.

Similarly, Indian Railways, a state-owned enterprise boasting the 4th largest railway network in the world, occupies a unique legal position due to its ‘public entity’ status. Issues of delays are dealt with under the Railways Act 1989 and the Railway Claims Tribunal, which focus primarily on accident claims rather than service deficiencies such as cancellations or delays. Being viewed as a body with sovereign functions, courts have been reluctant to award any kind of compensation only for delays. This position is in utter variance with that of the EU wherein Rail Passenger Rights Regulation are placed as a comprehensive code applicable to rail travel within EU placing mandatory obligations on railway companies to furnish complete information regarding the journey with potential disruptions, a dedicated complaint procedures and a right based approach to  address delays and cancellations prompting redressal from railway companies, national authority (in case of refusal by railway companies), along with provisions for out of court settlement and formal legal action under EU rules using the European Small Claims procedure. Similarly, in the UK, dedicated provisions relating to Delay Repay have been made, which mandatorily require refunds and compensation in cases of delay or cancellations of trains via a simplified national scheme. Also, the National Rail Conditions of Travel provides the bare minimum compensation charter for such disruptions, thus strengthening passengers’ rights.

Taking cue from such initiatives, class action in such matters is necessitated considering the scale of network and volume of passengers when compared to the aviation sector. Also, the factor of awareness gains prominence in railways as this mode of transportation has a direct nexus with rural India, thereby inviting the use of class action to effectively represent the plight of passengers, which is close to null through the traditional method.  Likewise, other means of urban mass transit systems involving metro system and state transportation framework also embed public character or public-private partnership, which often lack a dedicated compensation framework for delays that could be resolved through class actions. So, the traditional legal compensation mechanism in the transportation sector is inadequate in handling public grievances, calling for increased relevance of class action lawsuits to revamp accountability without overwhelming courts with individual claims.

Structural and Policy Challenges

There is everythingappropriate regarding the application of class actions, so what do we lack?The answer lies in persistent structural and policy constraints that have left little room for its growth and reforms. Lack of a comprehensive class action framework is one of key problems that discourage such collectivism when aggrieved people are left to rely upon narrow and fragmented frameworks that also suffer from their own limitations such as Consumer Protection Act 2019 (capacity challenges), Code of Civil Procedure 1908 (complex process), and Companies Act 2013 (remedy available only to members or depositors). Even such limited provisions imbibe complex mechanisms, strict statutory thresholds of proving commonality of interests, and constrained remedies, which often cause inconvenience rather than relief. Also, the monetary aspect of costs linked with such complex litigation serves as  an impediment to the public in the absence of any dedicated legal aid framework for such action. The point of jurisdictional overlap between courts, tribunals, and forums, and the absence of a quantifying measure for damages, also pose a problem, along with a lack of widespread awareness about class action. These challenges warrant both legal reform and policy innovation to substantiate the cause of class actions in India.

The Way Forward: Reforming Collective Redress

Class Action with respect to transportation delays in India has mostly been redundant since its inception due to a variety of structural and policy challenges. There is an urgent need for the recognition of a suitable solution for such constraints so that the untapped potential of class action could be achieved, like in Western nations. Taking cue from international standards, India must make efforts towards regularizing class actions as an instrument of legal reform and consumer welfare. There should be deliberation to recognize transportation accountability as an element of good governance. First, India should consider framing and enactment of a comprehensive statutory framework for class action, considering the limitations posed by fragmented provisions across statutes. The framework must include service-related grievances, recognizing transportation delays as a liability for service providers. Second, sector-specific regulations should embody automatic compensation thresholds reducing reliance on litigation, along with stricter indemnity provisions that could act as a deterrent for corporations against repeating such occurrences and safeguarding individual rights. Third, the legal aid mechanism must be enhanced in such cases to meet the high litigation cost, which will inherently encourage active public participation. Lastly, the consumer associations, NGOs, and civic societies should be empowered to facilitate their representation in such cases so that the lack of awareness does not impede the rights of an individual.

Conclusion

Class Action Litigation is a facet of a free, liberal state that strives to redress the grievances of a large number of aggrieved people in an efficient way. Transportation delays in India are a subject matter of such actions wherein collective harm substitutes individual grievances and individualistic approach often provides inadequate relief. Such mechanisms could invoke changes in the system, leading to greater accountability, deterrence, and justice. However, such actions lack legal ground in India due to a variety of structural and policy related factors that impede its growth. Such constraints must be addressed efficiently to protect and promote passenger rights so that mass transportation, along with economic efficiency advance constitutional values of dignity, equality, and accountability.