Court orders AI to hike Mangalore crash compensation to Rs 75 lakh

July 20, 2011

mangalore_air_crash_2

Mangalore/Kochi, July 20: The families of victims of the Air India Express crash in Mangalore last year are entitled to a minimum compensation of Rs 75 lakh each, the Kerala High Court held today.

Justice P R Ramachandran Menon passed the order while allowing a petition filed by Abdul Salam and Ramla, parents of 24-year-old B Mohammed Rafi, who was killed in the crash.

158 passengers and crew on board the Air India aircraft from Dubai had perished in the worst air disaster in the last decade, when the plane caught fire after one of its wings hit a hillock at Kenjar in Mangalore.

The brothers and sisters of the deceased are also party to the petition. Union government and National Aviation company (erstwhile Air India) are the respondents in the case.

There were 166 persons on board the flight IX-892, piloted by a Serbian national. Operating the Boeing 737-800, the pilot had first tried to land and later attempted to gain altitude.

The court held that the carrier was liable to pay no fault liability of one lakh SDR (Special Drawing Rights equal to Rs 75 lakh) to the petitioner. The SDR is a special currency issued by IMF. This is apart from whatever other compensation the petitioners are entitled to.

The petitioners prayed for a direction to settle the entire statutory claims made under the provision of the Air Act 1972 from the respondents on the death of Rafi. They had sought Rs 1.5 crore as compensation.

Noting that India was a signatory to the Montreal Convention, the court said, "It is clear that the intention of lawmakers was to bring about a parity in the matter of payment of compensation to the passengers, irrespective of class of travel, while providing for a 'two tier system' of compensation as adopted in Montreal convention."

The "first limb" of compensation as stipulated under Rule 21(1) of the Third schedule was with the said intent to provide the same as the "minimum compensation" payable in respect of death or the bodily injuries subject to the satisfaction of extent of damage, the court said.

"Since the extent of damage to any injury cannot be anything more than death", no further proof is necessary to have sanctioned the minimum compensation of "Rs one lakh SDR" in the case of death and this is the mandate of the Statute, it held.

The court said it was of the "firm belief" that Mohammed Rafi, who lost his life like the several others, was not liable to be discriminated by the respondents, restricting the compensation with reference to his age, income or the dependency of the members of the family.

The petitioners were entitled to have a "minimum of one lakh SDR" as compensation payable under the Statute based on the Montreal Convention treating the matter as "no fault liability" which can in no case be "absolved or limited by the carrier under any circumstances", it said.

About Rs 20 lakh has already been paid to the petitioners and the rest should be paid in a month's time, it added.

The petitioners said the deceased, working in UAE was returning home to Kumbala in Kasaragod in the ill-fated flight.

They said that the National Aviation Company Ltd, put forth an "unconscionable" demand, allegedly at the instance of their insurers, to come to a settlement for a total sum of Rs 35 lakh in full and final settlement.

Against this, the petitioners approached the High Court seeking a declaration and enforcement of their rights, referring to the mandate of the Montreal Convention.

The air crash was solely on account of lapse on the part of the pilot and in turn the sheer negligence of the National Aviation Company, they said.

The company filed a counter stating that the matter has to be dealt with as per the provision of the Carriage by Air Act 1972, as amended by Montreal Convention of 1999 to the exclusion of all other laws in force in India.

Referring to the fact that the deceased was aged 24 and was "employed as salesman in a supermarket, earning a salary of 2000 AED (RS 25,000 per month)", the maximum compensation was contended as much below Rs 35 lakh and accordingly the amount was offered as compensation payable in "full and final settlement", which was unacceptable to the petitioners.

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News Network
May 12,2020

New Delhi, May 12: Air India is planning to operate 149 repatriation flights to 31 countries between May 16 and May 22 during the second phase of the Vande Bharat mission to bring back home Indians stranded abroad amid the coronavirus-triggered lockdown, officials said. During the first phase of the Vande Bharat mission, Air India and its subsidiary Air India Express are scheduled to operate total 64 flights between May 7 and May 14 to bring approximately 15,000 Indians from 12 countries on a payment basis.

"In the second phase, Air India and Air India Express will operate 149 flights to countries such as the USA, the UAE, Canada, Saudi Arabia, the UK, Malaysia, Oman, Kazakhstan, Australia, Ukraine, Qatar and Indonesia," the airline officials stated.

Other countries to where the national carrier would operate flights between May 16 and May 22 are Russia, Philippines, France, Singapore, Ireland, Kyrgyzstan, Kuwait,

Japan, Georgia, Germany and Tajikistan, officials noted.
The flights during the second phase will also be operated to Bahrain, Armenia, Thailand, Italy, Nepal, Belarus, Nigeria and Bangladesh, they mentioned.

India has been under lockdown since March 25 to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus, which has infected more than 70,000 people and killed around 2,290 people in the country till now. All scheduled commercial passenger flights have been suspended for the lockdown period.

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Agencies
January 24,2020

Indore, Jan 24: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Kailash Vijayvargiya on Thursday said that he suspected that there were some Bangladeshis among construction labourers who worked at his house recently.

Their “strange” eating habits aroused suspicion about their nationality, the BJP general secretary said at a seminar in support of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) here.

When a new room was being added at his house recently, he found “eating habits” of some of the workers “strange” as “they were eating only `poha’ (flattened rice)”, he said.

After talking to their supervisor and the building contractor, he suspected that these workers were from Bangladesh, the BJP leader said.

When reporters questioned him later, Vijayvargiya said, “I suspected these workers were residents of Bangladesh. Two days after I became suspicious, they stopped working at my house. I have not filed any police complaint yet. I only mentioned this incident to warn people,” he said.

Speaking at the seminar, Vijayvargiya also claimed that a Bangladeshi terrorist was keeping a watch on him for the last one and a half years.

“Whenever I go out, six armed security personnel follow me. What is happening in this country? Will outside people enter and spread so much terror?” he asked.

“Don’t get confused by rumours. The CAA is in the interest of the country. This law will provide asylum to genuine refugees and identify intruders who are a threat to the country’s internal security,” he added.

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Well Wisher
 - 
Sunday, 26 Jan 2020

Koopa Mandooka. illeterates. Do not bother about them.

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News Network
May 15,2020

Mysuru, May 15: The Temple Town of Nanjangud was till now treated as one unit or a Cluster Containment Zone and was put under complete lock-down as per the containment protocol listed under COVID-19 regulations and Disaster Management Act, 2005.

However on Friday, some of the restrictions have been lifted by Mysuru Deputy Commissioner Abhiram G Sankar who permitted certain activities as no fresh positive cases were reported from the cluster area. The Cluster Containment Zone was declared on March 29 following one employee of Nanjangud-based Jubilant Generics tested positive for the killer Coronavirus. As there were chances of the positive person spreading the disease to other employees of the factory, the cluster rules were enforced. Moreover, there were over 1,000 employees in the Pharma Company and a majority of them lived in and around Nanjangud.

The declaration of Cluster Containment Zone with complete lock-down and quarantining of all the Pharma Company employees proved a success to the District Administration as whoever tested positive – over 73 were later tested positive — had already been quarantined and the dangerous community spread phase was successfully prevented. To a major extent, the Corona virus curve has been flattened. As such, restrictions have been relaxed a bit on Friday.

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