DAP's Seputeh parliamentarian Teresa Kok has filed a judicial review appication seeking to quash the increase in public parking charges in Kuala Lumpur.

This is because there has been 'procedural impropriety' in the implementation of the increase in parking charges," said her lawyer SN Nair.

"You (DBKL) have arbitrarily raised the parking rate without consultation.

"This judicial review application is to quash the gazette, because they did not conform to procedure," Nair told reporters at the Kuala Lumpur courthouse today.

Kok and her fellow plaintiff, Consumer Association of Selangor and Kuala Lumpur president Mohd Yusof Abdul Rahman, are also seeking to quash the decision by the Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) to appoint two private companies to handle the parking charge collection.

The three respondents named in the review were Federal Territories Minister Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor, Kuala Lumpur mayor Mhd Amin Nordin Abdul Aziz as well as DBKL.

Nair said that according to their calculations, the parking charges have increased from between 100 to 275 percent within Kuala Lumpur.

Not only that, he said, the amount you pay for parking is no longer proportionate to the parking time you get.

"If RM1 is for one hour, if you want to park one and a half hours, you can't pay RM1.50. You have to pay RM2.

"This is daylight robbery," he said.

He added that the privatisation of the parking charges collection was also done without consultation, when it should have been tendered.

Meanwhile, Kok said that as MPs within the Federal Territories, they should have been briefed or consulted about these changes, but this was only done after they protested the price hikes following media reports of the increase.

"The KL mayor said that the people are happy with the change. How can he know that?" she said, pointing out that there was never a public hearing on this matter.

She advised that a public hearing should indeed be held on the increase in parking charges.

The DBKL had increased parking rates by in its central business districts since July 18.

This has affected areas like Bukit Bintang, Sri Hartamas, Desa Hartamas, Bukit Damansara, Solaris Mont Kiara, Taman Tun Dr Ismail and Bangsar.

However after protests from the public, DBKL revised the hourly rates in these areas from RM2 to RM1.50 for the first hour, and between RM2.50 and RM3 for the the second and subsequent hours.

However, for areas outside of the city centre, but with high traffic activity like Sentul, Bangsar and Brickfields, the charges for the first and subsequent hours is RM1, while for outlying areas like Segambut, Taman Tun Dr Ismail, Setiawangsa, Sungai Besi and Bandar Tun Razak, the hourly rate is RM0.80.