India, March 24 -- The Bombay High Court has upheld the Central Railway's 2018 Shoe Shine Licence Policy, which mandates allocating licences through an open bidding process instead of the earlier practice of granting them to specific co-operative societies.

Dismissing a petition filed by the Bombay Shoe-Shine Workers Co-operative Society, the court said the policy of inviting open tenders ensures transparency, openness and fairness.

A division bench of Justices Bharati Dangre and Manjusha Deshpande observed that the new system allows all eligible societies to compete for licences, instead of continuing the earlier practice of allotting them to select co-operative bodies.

The petitioner society, comprising 35 members working at stations...