Dismissed ATCs missing, bail denied

FEBRUARY 23: The airport police is on the lookout for four sacked Air Traffic Controllers ATCs of the Mumbai airport, following the rej...

FEBRUARY 23: The airport police is on the lookout for four sacked Air Traffic Controllers ATCs of the Mumbai airport, following the rejection of their bail applications by the Sessions Court this morning.

The four ATCs, including secretary of the ATC Guild Western region, P N Bahguna, P Srinivas, M K Sinha and Sudhanshu Gupta, are 8220;untraceable8221; and have not yet been arrested, police said.

Earlier, Principal Sessions Judge, A S Aguiar, rejected the bail applications of the four ATCs, accused of having committed several offences under various sections of the Indian Penal Code IPC and the Civil Aviation Safety Act, 1982, which prescribe life imprisonment if proved guilty.

The judge, after hearing the oral submissions of both parties, concluded that custodial interrogation of the four officers was necessary since it was a conspiracy case according to the prosecution.

The four officers, who had been untraceable soon after their dismissal on February 18, had been earlier granted bail by the courttill today. Public prosecutor D G Paranjpe, who appeared on behalf of the state government, argued that the accused had indulged in disruption of air traffic, endangering lives of scores of passengers, and had also caused losses to the national exchequer to the tune of crores of rupees.

He also opposed the bail applications on the ground that the court had no jurisdiction to entertain the applications and only a designated court under the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against Safety of Civil Aviation Act, 1982, had the jurisdiction to try such matters. Defence counsel, C K Talekar, appearing on behalf of the applicants, submitted that the actions of the accused were not in violation of law and that they were agitating to press for genuine demands and acting on the directive of the ATC Guild. The prosecution also submitted a report by M A Qavi, senior inspector of Airport police station, which stated that despite the high courts at Delhi and Calcutta and the City Civil Court in Mumbai passing orders filedagainst the ATC Guild in separate litigations, the ATCs continued disrupting flights which 8220;shows that they have no respect whatsoever for the judicial orders,8221; the report stated.

Offences have been registered against the accused under Sections 283, 290, 291, 341, 34 of IPC read with Section 3A1B of the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against Safety of Civil Aviation Act, 1982.