New Delhi: The Delhi high court on Wednesday issued contempt notices to 67 striking Air India pilots and their representative body, Indian Pilots Guild (IPG), for disobeying its earlier order by which their stir was termed as illegal.
“Issue notices on this application (of Air India management) to the non-applicant (respondents 1 to 68). Notice shall indicate that the non-applicants (pilots) shall file their replies to it. List the matter on July 13,” Justice Reva Khetrapal said.
Lalit Bhasin, counsel for Air India, cited the judgment of a division bench of the high court by which the plea of IPG was dismissed and said that the pilots can be tried for civil contempt under the Civil Procedure Code, that entails a punishment of three months jail term.
Taking note of the plea, Justice Khetrapal, however, said, “In the meanwhile, I still feel that better sense will prevail on the pilots. “Nobody is concerned with the plight of the passengers as somebody might have to see a person on a death bed... Some must have missed an important meeting or an important interview.”
The counsel for Air India also told the court that “the IPG have held a press conference to categorically state that the pilots are still on strike. It manifests that they are still in defiance of the judicial order.”
Earlier in the day, Air India management had filed a contempt petition in the high court against the striking pilots on the ground that they have failed to comply with the court’s earlier order restraining them from undertaking the stir.
In its petition, the Air India management said despite the court’s restraint order, several opportunities were given to the striking pilots to resolve their issues but they failed to settle the matter.
On 9 May, the high court had restrained over 200 agitating pilots from continuing their “illegal strike”, reporting sick and staging demonstrations, a day after the airline management sacked 10 pilots and derecognised their union.
The court had also said allowing such a strike to continue would cause irreparable loss to the company as well as huge inconvenience to the passengers travelling by the national carrier.
The IPG had challenged the 9 May ex-parte order of the single judge holding the strike as illegal, saying it was done without any authority. A division bench of the court had, subsequently, dismissed their plea, saying the pilots could not “wilfully and flagrantly” disobey court orders to end their “illegal” strike and could face contempt action.
The bench had, however, granted liberty to IPG to move before the single judge for modification of its previous order while turning down its plea that the high court had no jurisdiction to pass an ex-parte order as the union’s office as well as Air India’s headquarters were in Mumbai.
The pilots, under the IPG banner, are agitating over the rescheduling of Boeing 787 Dreamliner training and matters relating to their career progression. The IPG is protesting AI’s decision to train pilots of Indian Commercial Pilots Association (ICPA), a union of pilots of erstwhile domestic carrier Indian Airlines, for Dreamliner Boeing aircraft.
Earlier, the AI management had filed an injunction suit terming the strike as illegal and had said due to the pilots’ stir, the company was compelled to cancel some of its international flights which had resulted in extreme hardship and also inconvenience to the passengers. Moreover, as a result of the cancellation of flights, Air India is facing financial loss of over Rs10 crore per day, it had said.
New Delhi: Air India on Wednesday filed a contempt petition against striking pilots in the Delhi high court on grounds that the agitators have failed to comply with its previous order restraining them from undertaking the stir.
Filing the petition through counsel Lalit Bhasin, Air India management said despite the court’s restraint order, several opportunities were given to the striking pilots to resolve their issues but they failed to settle the matter.
The counsel for AI is likely to mention the matter before Justice Reva Khetrapal, who had passed the restraint order, for the petition to be heard today itself.
On 9 May, the high court had restrained over 200 agitating pilots from continuing their “illegal strike”, reporting sick and staging demonstrations, a day after the airlines management sacked 10 pilots and derecognised their union.
The pilots, under the banner of Indian Pilots Guild (IPG), are agitating over the rescheduling of Boeing 787 Dreamliner training and matters relating to their career progression. The judge had also said allowing such a strike to continue would cause irreparable loss to the company as well as huge inconvenience to the passengers travelling by the national carrier.
Filing an injunction suit against the pilots, counsel for AI management Bhasin had termed the strike as illegal and said due to the pilots’ stir, the company has been compelled to cancel some of its international flights which has resulted in extreme hardship and also inconvenience to the passengers.
Moreover, as a result of the cancellation of flights, Air India is facing huge financial loss of over Rs10 crore per day, he had said.
