MUMBAI: Putting an end to the mid-air middle-seat row, the Supreme Court on Friday dismissed a petition filed by an Air India pilot from Mumbai who sought to challenge a Bombay high court order permitting its occupancy on board the national carrier and all domestic airlines.
The SC order by Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Bhushan Gavai confirmed that there is no need to keep the middle seat vacant on aircrafts. It upheld the HC order that adequate measures were deployed for safety and health of passengers.
The AI pilot, Deven Kanani, wanted judicial intervention to ensure that middle-seats aboard aircrafts are kept vacant to ensure passenger safety via a social distancing measure to prevent a mid-air contagion of Covid-19 among flyers, be they ones returning to India or domestic passengers. Kanani had filed a special leave petition against a June 16 final order by HC bench of Justices S J Kathawalla and S P Tavade in his interim application.
The SC bench observed that the HC had dealt with the safety aspect and considered the views of experts. They said they were not experts in the medical field and the “issue was decided by experts’’ so they would not intervene.
The HC had gone by the expert panel’s views as well as views of the Air Transport Facilitation committee to convey its prima facie satisfaction that “safety and health of passengers on board qua Covid-19 is adequately taken care of even if the middle seat of the aircraft is not kept vacant due to passenger load and seat capacity.”
