SURESH KUMAR Vs. UNION OF INDIA & ORS.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) BY this writ petition, petitioner challenges the action of his employer/respondent no. 2/Indian Airlines Ltd. (Now Air India Ltd.) of suspending him during the pendency of the enquiry, from flying duties i.e. off -rostering the petitioner. The impugned suspension is dated 12.1.1999. On behalf of the petitioner, reliance is placed upon Rule 19(3) of the Aircraft Rules, 1937 to argue that principles of natural justice have to be followed before ordering suspension and a speaking order, which must be communicated to the petitioner, must be passed even for interim suspension during investigation. It is argued that since the said procedure was not followed, the suspension of the petitioner during the enquiry is bad. To buttress his argument of requiring the communication of the order of suspension to him, petitioner relies upon the order dated 24.6.1999 communicated to Capt. Shyam Kalra and Capt. GPS Grewal, who were involved in an incident on 18.6.1999 of gazing of the wing tips of two aircrafts.

(2.) IN order to appreciate the argument urged on behalf of the petitioner Rule 19 of the Aircraft Rules, 1937 in its entirety is reproduced below: -

(3.) THAT Capt Suresh Kumar informed the incidents to IAC but failed to make arrangements to replace the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) of his aircraft so that evidence of his performance during the flight and the instructions given to him could be removed from the tape. He operated the aircraft on the return Chandigarh -Delhi flight utilizing the same CVR tape leading to automatic destruction of previous data on the tape thereby destroying key piece of evidence that would be required for investigation. After operating his flight back to Delhi, he made a written report of the incident to his company, as required, showing that Chandigarh Air Traffic Control had given wrong instructions to him and caused a situation of near air collision.