No one in India believes pilot was the cause for AI crash: Supreme Court to father of Captain Sumeet Sabharwal

Senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan, appearing for the pilot's father, Pushkaraj Sabharwal, said there was a news article in US publication Wall Street Journal with regard to the pilot, Captain Sumeet Sabharwal.

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday said that no blame could be attributed to the pilot of the Air India flight to London, which crashed in Ahmedabad in June this year, claiming 260 lives, by saying, “whatever is the cause of the tragedy, the pilot is not the cause”.

A bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi was hearing a petition filed by Pushkar Raj Sabharwal, the father of Commander Sumeet Sabharwal, one of the pilots of the ill-fated flight, seeking a judicially monitored committee, headed by a former judge of the apex court, to conduct a probe into the crash.

Senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayana, representing the petitioners, contended that his clients seek an impartial investigation as the current investigation being conducted by the AAIB was not independent.

He asked the bench to direct a judicially monitored probe under Rule 12 of the Aircraft (Investigation of Accidents and Incidents) Rules, which mandates impartiality in accident investigations.

Hearing the counsel, the bench said “It is extremely unfortunate this accident took place and he lost his son…but he should not carry this burden that his son is being accused or blamed…we will clarify, nobody can blame him for anything”.

The court said there is no insinuation against the pilot and there is no question of a report apportioning blame and, in fact, the investigation is not to apportion blame.

Sankaranarayana cited an article carried by the Wall Street Journal based on information they got from this investigation and his client’s son is being attacked.

“We are not bothered about what a foreign press…your suit should have been against WSJ in an American court,” the bench said.

The counsel said the WSJ is citing an Indian government source. The bench said it does not matter and the accusation is by a foreign press, whose insinuation is factually incorrect.

“This kind of nasty reporting because they only want to blame India,” the court said.

Sankaranarayanan said let us ignore the nasty reporting. The bench replied that there is nothing in the plea before it.

The counsel said on August 3, respondent number 3, who is doing this preliminary investigation, sent two officers to his client’s, who is now 91 years-old, house, and they said, “look when did your son get divorced, and I said 15 years ago. So, he is depressed and that is the reason why he tried to commit suicide…when did your wife pass. I told she passed away 3 years ago…”

The counsel said officers told his client that therefore his son had depression, while criticising the conduct of the investigators.

The bench said India is not a small country and it is a country with 142 crore people.

“None of them have any belief that there was any fault with the pilot. Whatever is the cause of the tragedy, the pilot is not the cause,” the bench said.

The counsel said his client’s son was a pilot and his grandson is also a pilot and they are offering their services to the nation, and it is wrong for people to make such kind of insinuations.

Upon hearing submissions, the court sought response from the Centre and agreed to take up the matter along with another related plea on November 10.

The instant plea filed by Sabharwal and Federation of Indian Pilots contended that the preliminary investigation into the crash is profoundly flawed.

“The investigation team had rather conducting a comprehensive technical inquiry, appears predominantly focus on the deceased pilots, who are no longer able to defend themselves, while failing to examine or eliminate other more plausible technical and procedural causes of the crash,” the plea said.

The plea said the investigation conducted by the respondents is vitiated by selective and incomplete disclosure of material facts, disregard of critical inconsistencies, and suppression of systemic causes that point to design or electronic malfunction.