The Delhi High Court today pulled up
Air India for "sitting over" the conciliation process for
reinstatement of its 101 pilots whose services were terminated for going on
strike.
The court also asked the AI
management to inform it by Wednesday if the high-power committee, set up by it,
would decide the issue within four weeks.
Expressing displeasure with the AI
management for not fulfilling its assurance to consider the issue of
reinstatement sympathetically in a time bound manner, Justice Reva Khetrapal
said, "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."
"It looks now like the
management wants to have its cake and eat it too, how it can be allowed?"
Justice Khetrapal said while expressing her displeasure with the delay in the
process of reinstatement of pilots.
The court passed the order after
counsel Lalit Bhasin, appearing for AI management, said that he is sticking to
the stand taken by the management to consider the reinstatement issue
sympathetically but the statement was not appreciated in the proper spirit.
He also said the management has
setup a high-power committee which will examine the issue on case by case basis
and it will take at least three months' time.
To his submission, the court asked
the counsel to seek instructions from the management whether its committee
constituted for the reinstatement of pilots will submit the report within four
weeks.
"You will seek instruction
whether you will consider the matter of reinstatement of pilots within four
weeks," Justice Khetrapal said. (MORE)
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