New Delhi, February 25 The Delhi High Court on Wednesday rejected a public interest litigation (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 "interpret" the preliminary investigation report of the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau and direct the authorities to modify the report to include the time-chart of "engine flame out" and the 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 the public domain, was "misconceived".
Observing that the petitioner should have taken recourse to the Right to Information (RTI) Act, the bench said, "such a request cannot be granted."
If such information is worthy of being provided under the RTI Act, it will be provided, the court said.
"We are not inclined to entertain this petition, which has been 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 "the 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-established principle of law that the field where experts operate should be left to the experts. The report which has been sought to be interpreted by the court in this petition has been prepared by experts, and therefore, even if in the assessment of the petitioner, the said report bears some deficiencies, no insistence can be put on the court for interpreting such a report," the court said.
The court also orally observed that the investigation was still underway and the bureau has only provided 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 on board and 19 individuals on the ground.