The Delhi high court on Monday strongly rebuked Air India for not being serious about its earlier assurance of dealing “sympathetically” with the issue of reinstatement of its sacked pilots.
Slamming the AI management for “sitting over” the process of reconcilliation with its agitating pilots, Justice Reva Khetrapal directed the national carrier to resolve the issue of reinstatement of 101 sacked pilots in a time-bound manner, preferably within the next four weeks.
“It looks now like the (Air India) management wants to have its cake and eat it too. The basic question is how much time will it take for pilots to be reinstated, and what is their misde-meanor.....You wanted them to join quickly but now you’re sitting on conciliatory proceedings. You want to tilt the scale in your favour,” the court said.
After counsel Lalit Bhasin, appearing for the AI management, told the court that the high-powered committee constituted by the national carrier to look into the issue would take at least three months’ time, Justice Khetrapal directed AI to inform the court by July 18 if the committee would decide the issue within four weeks.
“I am upset and I am also getting anguished. You assured the court... Now you want to sit over it. It should be in a time-bound manner. You will seek instruction (from AI) whether you will consider the matter of reinstatement of pilots within four weeks,” the court told the AI counsel. During the hearing, senior advocates C.A. Sundaram and Geeta Luthra, appearing for the pilots, informed the court that though the conciliation process is going on, the AI management is not serious about the reinstatement of the terminated pilots. “We are not happy with the committee formed by the Air India management. Some members may not be fair,” Mr Sundaram said.
On July 13, deputy chief labour commissioner S.K. Chand submitted his conciliation report to the court which said the AI management has constituted a committee comprising of senior executives to negotiate with the pilots about their demand of reinstatement of their sacked colleagues.
The high court had on July 9 told the AI management and a section of its pilots, who recently called off their 58-day-old strike, to hold conciliation talks daily before the deputy chief labour commissioner till the dispute was resolved. —- ends