'Why not all airlines?' SC junks plea for AI safety audit

NEW DELHI: Supreme Court rebuked an Air India passenger who moved the court on Friday for a safety audit of the airlines' entire fleet in the wake of AI-171 crash at Ahmedabad on June 12, saying it was unfair to target a single airline for a tragic incident.

The passenger had flown an Air India flight to Paris that experienced a fire incident five days before the Ahmedabad accident. Petitioner-advocate N K Goswami along with AI-143 flight passenger L P Goswami cited a series of incidents involving Air India flights to flag safety issues and sought a writ of mandamus from SC to address alleged "systemic safety lapses and deliberate negligence by Air India" which endangered passenger safety.

A bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi asked the petitioner-lawyer, "Why only Air India? Why not all airlines? For deficiency in service of an individual airline, you can always approach the jurisdictional consumer forum, Directorate General of Civil Aviation or even the Union govt".

Justice Kant said, "...Do not give the impression that you are filing this petition at the behest of a rival airline. If you are genuinely concerned about passenger safety, then file a PIL with all airlines, both domestic and international, as parties". "If they do not take any action, then we can step in," the bench said.

Mathura-based scientist L P Goswami was on the AI-143 flight from Delhi to Paris on June 7. According to him, the aircraft experienced a fire incident due to electrical error, and it had to make an emergency landing at Sharjah where he remained grounded for 16 hours.