HC raps Centre, DGCA for not acting promptly in IndiGo crisis

The Delhi high court ‘on Wednesday criticised the Centre and the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) for not acting promptly against IndiGo over its failure to deploy sufficient manpower to meet the new Flight Duty Time Limit (FDTL) norms, resulting in operational disruptions that left several passengers stranded at airports nationwide.

- Shruti Kakkar

A bench of chief justice DK Upadhyay and justice Tushar Rao Gedela issued the reprimand while dealing with a petition filed by two advocates — Akhil Rana and Utkarsh Sharma — seeking a judicial inquiry into the mass cancellation of flights, and the compensation and ground support for the stranded passengers.

Describing the situation as a crisis, the bench remarked that the government took action into the matter only after the situation turned into a crisis. It said that large scale cancellations not only resulted in causing inconvenience to the passengers but also affected the economy, in which fast movement of passengers is an important aspect to ensure its smooth functioning.

“It’s quite a crisis. Are you helpless? The question is why did such a situation precipitate? Who is responsible? Where have been the failures on the part of the government or the DGCA which permitted this situation to precipitate. The situation in which you had issued certain directions to the flyers for regulating working hours of their pilots, it was with an objective. Why did you not ensure that it is implemented within time?,” the bench told the Centre.