Court orders case against Kerala CPI(M) leader for in-flight ruckus

A magistrate court directed the police here on Wednesday to register a case against senior CPI(M) leader E P Jayarajan and two members of chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s personal staff. This is a major setback for the ruling CPI(M) in Kerala as the public ire against Pinarayi increases.

Jayaraj, who was with the chief minister on a flight from Kannur to Thiruvananthapuram, shoved the two Youth Congress activists who heckled him.

The court order came a day after the chief minister said in the state Assembly there were no grounds for any action against Jayarajan, as there was protection for acts taken in good faith as per section 10 of The Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against Safety of Civil Aviation Act 1982.

The state police had also refused to register a case against Jayarajan, despite complaints against him for being physical with the Youth Congress workers.

On Tuesday, too, the government was shamefaced after bail was granted to Congress leader K S Sabarinadhan, who was arrested by the police under charges of conspiring to murder the chief minister by organising the protest in the flight. The two Youth Congress local leaders, who raised slogans against the chief minister inside the flight, had also been granted bail by the Kerala High Court earlier.

The magistrate court order to register cases against Jayarajan, Chief Minister's gunman, and personal assistant came due to a petition filed by the Youth Congress activists, who staged a protest in the flight. They accused Jayarajan and the other two of attempting to murder them.

The protest was staged on June 13 in a Kannur-Thiruvananthapuram IndiGo flight after it landed. Based on an internal inquiry, IndiGo imposed a three-week ban on Jayarajan, while the two Youth Congress activists were banned for two weeks.

Consequently, the Youth Congress workers approached court alleging that even as the airlines found that the offence by Jayarajan was graver than the offence committed by them, the police did not take any action against him.

Meanwhile, in suspected vindictive action, the Kerala government’s motor vehicles department issued notice to one more bus of IndiGo for road tax due of Rs 43,000. On Tuesday, an IndiGo airline bus was fined for due tax. The buses are used inside the airport to transport passengers between the terminal and the aircraft at the Kozhikode international airport.

Senior officials of the motor vehicles department told the media that the action against IndiGo's buses did not have any connection with the travel ban on the CPI(M) leader.