The Supreme Court on Monday, 18 February, refused to entertain a PIL seeking a court-monitored probe into the incidents of aircraft crashes following a recent crash of the Mirage-2000 trainer aircraft on 1 February, in Bengaluru, which took the lives of two Indian Air Force pilots.
The petition filed by advocate Alakh Alok Srivastava was dismissed by a bench comprising Chief Justice of India (CJI) Ranjan Gogoi and Justice Sanjiv Khanna, who said there cannot be a judicial inquiry into such mishappenings, as reported by PTI.
"From which generation does the Mirage aircraft belong?" the bench asked Srivastava.
A hesitant Srivastava replied, "4th generation", according to LiveLaw.in.
“You don’t know that and you have filed a PIL to have a judicial inquiry into its crash? It is of the 3rd generation or 3.5 at best! It bound to crash! We are now on the 6th generation!”CJI Ranjan Gogoi
The bench then dismissed the PIL saying, "We are not inclined to entertain this petition".
The petition had sought directions from the Centre to take steps to ensure that such aircraft crashes do not occur in the future.
On 1 February, the Mirage-2000 trainer aircraft had crashed at the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited Airport in Bengaluru, killing both pilots – Squadron Leader Samir Abrol and Squadron Leader Siddhartha Negi, both from Aircraft and Systems Testing Establishment.
The PIL had sought a court-monitored committee comprising a retired judge of the apex court and experts from Indian defence services to conduct a thorough probe into the Mirage crash.
It had said that the committee should fix the responsibility of erring government officials and others for the lapses leading to such incidents and also suggest measures to ensure that it does not occur again in future.
The petitioner had referred to a recent media report which said that IAF have lost over 35 aircraft and helicopters in crashes since 2015-16 in which 45 lives have been lost.
Since 2011, the Indian Air Force, the Army and the Navy have recorded accidents of over 75 aircraft and helicopters in which over 80 persons have died, the plea had said referring to the report.
(With inputs from PTI and LiveLaw.in)
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