Air India Urination accused Shankar Mishra moves Delhi High Court for constitution of committee to hear plea against ‘unruly passenger’ tag

Air Indian urination case accused Shankar Mishra has approached the Delhi High Court seeking constitution of an appellate committee to hear his appeal against designating him an ‘unruly passenger’ and banning him from flying for four months..The matter was listed before Justice Prathiba M Singh today when the counsel appearing for Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) stated that the appellate committee already exists. Justice Singh then now asked the DGCA counsel to place the constitution of the committee before the court within a week. The case will be heard next on March 23. .Mishra was arrested by the Delhi Police from Bengaluru on January 7 on the allegation that he urinated on a 70-year-old woman while in an inebriated condition in November last year on board an Air India flight.He was subsequently removed from his job at Wells Fargo with the company saying that the allegations against him were "deeply disturbing".However, Mishra has maintained that the allegations against him are false and baseless. He was released on bail by Delhi's Patiala House Court on January 31. .In his plea, filed through advocates Akshat Bajpai, Ishanee Sharma, Shobhit Trehan and Renuka Parmananda, Mishra stated that the complainant woman had registered a complaint against him on Airsewa grievance portal on December 20, 2022. In pursuance of the complaint, Air India constituted an internal inquiry committee. On January 18, 2023, the committee issued an order designating him as an 'unruly passenger' and banning him from flying for four months.The petition argued that paragraph 8.5 of the Civil Aviation Requirements (CAR) for Handling unruly passengers envisages that a person aggrieved by an 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 Aviation..“The Petitioner, being aggrieved by the order dated 18.01.2023 on grounds of the aforementioned factual and legal infirmities seeks to prefer an appeal against the said order and has written emails to the DGCA [Director General of Civil Aviation] on 19.01.2023 and to the Ministry of Civil Aviation on 20.02.2023, 27.02.2023 and 06.03.2023. However, no such committee has been constituted as of the date of filing this Writ Petition,” the plea stated.The plea further said that it is an established position of law that a statutory right of appeal is a vested right and the non-constitution of the appellate committee by the Ministry of Civil Aviation is eroding his right to exhaust all his remedies available unto him.“As such, the Ministry of Civil Aviation’s inaction is directly infringing the Petitioner’s rights under Article 21 of the Constitution,” it was contended. .The DGCA, Ministry of Civil Aviation and Air India have been made respondents in the petition.