New Delhi, Feb 25 The Delhi High Court on Wednesday rejected a PIL seeking inclusion of information in the preliminary investigation report on the "complete sequence of events" leading to the Air India plane crash in Ahmedabad last June.
The petitioner, a mechanical engineer from IIT-Delhi, had urged the court to "read down" the preliminary investigation report of Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau and direct the authorities to modify the report to include the time-chart of "flame out" of engines and transition of fuel switches, whether mechanical or manual.
A bench of Chief Justice D K Upadhyaya and Justice Tejas Karia said the PIL, which also sought a direction to the bureau to publish such information in public domain, was "highly misconceived".
Observing that the petitioner should have taken recourse available to him under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, the bench said, "such prayer in our considered opinion cannot be granted."
If such information is worthy of being given under the RTI Act, it would be provided, the court said.
"We are not inclined to entertain this petition which is dismissed," the court concluded.
The petitioner's counsel said he believed that it was highly probable that the cause of failure of both engines of the aircraft was a "surge", which could be confirmed by "exact time of flame out of each engine and the transitions of each fuel switch to the cut off position".
The court remarked that while it might share the petitioner's concerns, it did not have the expertise to decide such issues.
"It is a well settled principle of law that the field where the experts operate should ordinately be left to the experts.. The report which has been sought to be read down by the court in this petition has been prepared by the experts, and therefore, even if in the assessment of the petitioner, the said report bears some lacune, no insistence can be put on the court for reading down such a report," the court said.
The court also orally observed that investigation was still underway and the bureau has only given a preliminary report at this stage.
"You have already written to them. They will consider," the court told the petitioner's counsel.
On June 12 last year, the Air India flight AI 171, a Boeing 787-8 aircraft en route to London Gatwick, crashed into a medical college hostel complex shortly after take off from Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport.
The aircraft burst into flames, killing 241 out of 242 people onboard and 19 individuals on the ground.
