Karnataka HC throws out case against IIT grad behind 'Tatkal For Sure' web extension

Gaurav Dhake, who was charged under Section 143 of the Railways Act for allegedly illegally procuring and distributing railway tickets, saw the case against him quashed by a single judge bench of Justice M Nagaprasanna.

Bengaluru: The High Court of Karnataka has thrown out the criminal case against an IIT graduate, who developed a software tool to help passengers book Tatkal train tickets in 40-45 seconds.

Gaurav Dahake, a graduate of IIT Kharagpur, was booked by the railway police after he developed Tatkal For Sure, a web browser extension to speed up the booking of Tatkal tickets on the official IRCTC website. He was booked under Section 143 of the Railways Act, which punishes those procuring and supplying train tickets without authorisation.

A native of Aurangabad, Maharashtra, Dahake has a deep passion for entrepreneurship and had initially launched buyhatke.com, a web browser extension which helps consumers save money during online transactions by comparing product prices.

In August 2017, he developed Tatkal For Sure, which auto-fills the details of travellers booking Tatkal tickets on the official IRCTC website.

Tatkal ticket bookings open at 10 am for AC classes and at 11 am for non-AC class, a day before the train's departure. While it would take eight minutes for a traveller to get a confirmed Tatkal ticket from the railways, Dahake's web extension would do so in only 40–45 seconds.

In February 2020, three years after launching the web extension, Dahake restricted access to it, capped ticket bookings to 10 a month and started charging Rs 30 per ticket.

This caught the attention of the railways, and Dahake was booked under Section 143.

Dahake petitioned the High Court of Karnataka against this, stressing that he was paying relevant taxes and GST on all transactions.

Justice M Nagaprasanna observed that the petitioner neither procured nor supplied railway tickets and hence did not attract an offence under Section 143.

The court also noted that after repeated show-cause notices, the railway police filed their final report in October 2023.

"It is only those persons who unauthorisedly carry on the business of procuring and supplying tickets for travel on a railway would become open to punishment for offence punishable under Section 143 of the Act. The petitioner has not indulged in unauthorised carrying on of business of procuring and supplying of railway tickets. Finding no ingredient of offence under Section 143 of the Act, permitting further proceedings would run counter to law," Justice Nagaprasanna said, adding that observations in the order would not become applicable to any other proceeding initiated against the petitioner.