Delhi High Court directs DGCA to constitute appellate committee handling appeal of "unruly" air passengers

The Delhi High Court on Thursday directed the Directorate General of Civil Aviation DGCA to constitute an appellate committee to handle the appeal of air passengers facing a travel ban in a period of two weeks The court passed the direction on the petition moved by Shankar Mishra who is facing a 4month air travel banJustice Prathiba M Singh while disposing of the petition also directed the petitioner Shankar Shyamnaval Mishra to file an appeal in two weeks before the committeeThe court said that the first hearing before the committee shall be on April 10 Meanwhile the committee shall be constitutedThe high court also noted that the 60 days period for filing an appeal is over However the court allowed him to file an appealThe counsel for the DGCA submitted that the committee was there earlier It got dissolved after the chairperson resigned on February 9 2023The counsel also said that before that the committee was working But the petitioner sent an email instead of filing an appeal The ministry is in the process of appointment of the chairpersonAfter noting the submission the bench observed The petitioner ought to have filed an appeal instead of sending emails as at the time the committee was workingMishra had approached the court seeking a direction for the constitution of an appellate committee to challenge the ban order He is facing a 4month ban after an incident of unruly behaviour while travelling from the US to New DelhiThe High court on March 15 granted time to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation DGCA to place on record the documents related to the constitution of the appellate Committee looking into the appeals of unruly Air passengersShankar Mishra moved the court seeking a direction to the Ministry of Civil Aviation to constitute an appellate committee in accordance with DGCA CAR for Unruly PassengersHe is accused of urinating on a woman on the flight in November An FIR was registered and he was arrested Later he was granted bail by the courtHe has been banned from travelling for four months He has challenged the order passed by the Internal Inquiry CommitteeThe Petitioner moved a petition through advocate Akshat Bajpai and stated that he was travelling in business class on Air India Flight on November 26 2022 where during the duration of the flight certain unsubstantiated and false allegations were made against him by a copassengerAlso Read Two booked for drinking creating ruckus midair on DubaiMumbai flightThe said copassenger had registered a complaint with the Airsewa grievance portal on December 20 2022 the petition statedIn pursuance of the complaint received on December 20 2022 Air India constituted an Internal Inquiry Committee in accordance with the DGCA Civil Aviation Requirements CAR for handling unruly passengers to determine whether the Petitioner should be designated to be an unruly passenger under CAR and for what duration should the Petitioner be banned from flying it addedThe petitioner was issued a notice by the Inquiry Committee on December 24 2022 and after conducting meetings issued an order designating him to be an unruly passenger and banning him from flying for 4 months the petition was submittedThe said order suffers from factual and legal infirmities as the order completely misunderstands the physical layout of the aircraft and premises its findings on the basis of this erroneous understanding of the aircraft it addedIt is submitted that under Rule 85 of CAR a person aggrieved by order of the Inquiry Committee may prefer an appeal within 60 days of the order before an Appellate Committee constituted by the Ministry of Civil AviationThe Petitioner being aggrieved by the order of January 18 2023 on grounds of factual and legal infirmities seeks to prefer an appeal against the said order and has written emails to the DGCA on January 19 and to the Ministry of Civil Aviation on February 20 February 27 and March 6 the plea statedHowever no such committee has been constituted as of the date of filing this Writ Petition it statedIt is an established position of law that a statutory right of appeal is a vested right and the nonconstitution of the Appellate Committee by the Ministry of Civil Aviation is eroding the Petitioners right to exhaust all his remedies available unto him as per the due procedure established by law the petition saidThe Ministry of Civil Aviations inaction is directly infringing the Petitioners rights under Article 21 of the Constitution it contendedThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever