New Delhi: The Delhi high court heard a PIL filed seeking demolition of hundreds of buildings above the prescribed height around the Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGAI) in the capital on grounds of threat to lives of passengers and damage to the aircraft.
A bench of acting chief justice Gita Mittal and justice C. Hari Shankar issued a notice to the ministry of civil aviation, Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) and the Delhi International Airport Private Limited (Dial) to seek their replies on the plea. The PIL also alleged that the authorities colluded with real estate lobbies, leading to the present situation.
The PIL claimed that a similar situation prevailed in Mumbai with regard to the airport there. The court also issued notice to Airports Authority of India (AAI) and other security agencies and sought their replies before December 6, the next date of hearing.
Yeshwanth Shenoy, who filed the PIL, sought directions to the DGCA and other authorities to proceed against the said buildings near the airport as per the Aircraft (Demolition of obstructions caused by buildings and trees) Rules, 1994.
It urged the court to direct the concerned authorities to conduct an “obstacle survey as mandated by law”.
Mr Shenoy, a Kerala-based lawyer, said that Delhi was affected by obstacles. “The AAI has identified the obstacles, but failed to follow the procedure provided to remove them thereby, threatening aviation safety and consequently, the lives of passengers, crew and the people on ground. The Dial has also failed to conduct obstacle study as mandated by law and the DGCA failed to identify the threat to safety in its safety audits.”
Mr Shenoy also urged the court to direct the authorities concerned to produce the past 10 years safety audit reports for the IGIA in Delhi and instruct Dial to comply with the safety standards as mentioned in the AAI and DGCA audit reports.
The Bureau of Civil Aviation Security, CISF and Delhi Police have not taken airport security seriously, he added.
