KATHMANDU, SEPTEMBER 5
Patan High Court has issued a show cause notice to Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal on halting of flights from Humla on July 28.
On July 28, CAAN had ordered 29 airports to halt flights after 12:30 noon.
Advocate Ganesh Bahadur Oli had filed a public interest litigation at the court against the CAAN decision arguing that service providers' refusal to fly planes on July 28 when a sixmonth-old child Imran Sunar from Ward No 6 of Simkot Rural Municipality was referred to a different hospital for medical care, led to the death of the child.
A single bench of Judge Durga Bahadur Bishwakarma issued a show cause notice to CAAN and other defendants.
As far as the petitioner's demand about an interim order is concerned, this court is of the opinion that since these issues are related to aviation sensitivity and security, a decision should be reached after hearing arguments from both sides on September 11.
On July 28, Deputy Director General Premlal Thakur-led panel had decided that for the moth of July, August and September, the concerned government agency would endorse the flight schedule of the service provider airlines and would not allow the airlines to operate flights beyond the scheduled hour.
The petitioner argued that the child had died as there was no flight from Humla to Nepalgunj and Surkhet on account of the CAAN decision taken on July 28, July 30.
The petitioner argued that CAAN violated Section 5 of the Nepal Civil Aviation Authority Act when it decided on August 16 that flight approval could be given only after the pilots and dispatcher okayed extra hour flights determining that the condition of the airport runway and weather visual meteorological condition minima was okay.
Petitioner Oli told THT that CAAN took a new decision on August 16 to mask its July 28 decision but by doing this, it violated the Nepal Civil Aviation Authority Act.
The bench also listed the case for priority hearing.
Recent news reports stated that four children of Humla district - Imran Sunar, seven-month-old child Rohit Shahi, 18-month-old Aryan Pariyar and Sandesh Lubar died as flights were not operated from Humla.
The petitioner had therefore urged Patan High Court to stay the CAAN decision taken on July 28 and August 16.
A version of this article appears in the print on September 06, 2023, of The Himalayan Times.
