Karnataka High Court quashes RPF case against techie who built ticket app

An IIT-Kharagpur graduate, Gaurav Dahake, 34, a resident of Aurangabad in Maharashtra, approached the Karnataka High Court earlier this year after he was chargesheeted by the RPF in a case from 2020 where he was accused of unauthorised supply of railway tickets under the Railways Act, 1989, which constitutes a jail term of three years.

Dahake, who founded the startup ‘buyhatke.com’ — an online price comparison service for products — also developed the Tatkal for Sure application in 2017 to help railway ticket buyers grab an emergency quota ticket in 45 seconds after bookings open, as opposed to the nearly five minutes taken for transactions while going directly through IRCTC.

After initially offering the app free of cost, the developer began charging Rs 30 per transaction and this resulted in the railways cracking down on him under Section 149 of the Railways Act for the procurement and supply of railway tickets without official authorisation.

In his plea against the chargesheet filed by the RPF, the techie argued that he had not procured or distributed railway tickets required to attract an offence under the Railways Act. The railways, however, argued that during the RPF investigations the techie confessed that he earned a Rs 12.49 lakh profit by charging the user fee of Rs 30 per ticket.

On whether Dahake had illegally procured or supplied railway tickets, the HC in its order stated that “the answer would be unequivocal and an emphatic no”.