KARACHI: The Sindh High Court on Thursday directed the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) to produce the policy for issuing airworthiness certificates on April 15.

The director airworthiness CAA informed the SHC that they have been issuing airworthiness certificates every year for each aircraft of Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) fleet and also checked aircraft randomly.

When a two-judge bench headed by Justice Mohammad Ali Mazhar took up a petition regarding an ATR aircraft crash in 2016 for hearing, the petitioner as well as the intervener were found absent.

The lawyer for PIA submitted a statement along with some documents which contended that its workshop was fully compliant with the OEM’s protocols and CAA’s instructions in maintaining the propeller blades.

The PIA further asserted in the statement that the entire current propeller blade inventory in stock room as well as on aircraft was in full compliance with all applicable airworthiness requirements of CAA.

PIA lawyer says workshop fully compliant with relevant protocols

The statement prepared by the chief technical officer of PIA was in reply to the written arguments of the petitioner as well as the response to the recommendations arising from the Aircraft Accident and Investigation Board’s final report regarding the ATR aircraft crash in 2016.

Director airworthiness Luqman Rasheed submitted that they issued airworthiness certificates every year for the aircraft.

He requested the bench for time to file the brief note along with the policy which they ensure for airworthiness of aircraft. The bench directed him to submit the same till April 15.

On the last hearing, the petitioner Iqbal Kazmi had submitted written arguments along with some documents and relied on the same.

In November, the head of the AAIB had submitted the final investigation report about the ATR aircraft crash that revealed that the aircraft had three technical anomalies.

Thereafter, the bench had called comments from the PIA and CAA and the national flag carrier contended that they have enhanced their capabilities with due diligence for all compliance and they were observing all prerequisites of technical and maintenance issues in all aircraft/fleet of PIA and accepted the responsibility to ensure future safety and technical measures.

The petition was filed after an Islamabad-bound flight of the national flag carrier had crashed in Abbottabad district after it took off from Chitral on December 7, 2016 in which 42 passengers and crew, including singer-turned preacher Junaid Jamshed and his wife, lost their lives.

Later, the mother of deceased Ahmed Mansoor Janjua, first officer of the ill-fated ATR, had become an intervener in the case.

Plea about Karachi Zoo

The same bench on Thursday directed the senior director Karachi Zoo and the conservator wildlife to file their replies in a petition filed against functioning of Karachi Zoological Gardens.

Earlier, the bench had issued show-cause notices to both the officials for not appearing before it despite being summoned.

On Thursday, both officials turned up and senior director Mansoor Qazi requested for time to file reply to show-cause notice as well as to the petition. The conservator wildlife Javed Mahar submitted a reply to show-cause and contended that due to some inadvertence the notice was not served upon him.

The bench took his reply on record and discharged the show-cause notice. It directed both officials to file comments/reply to the petition till April 15.

The petitioners moved the SHC stating that the condition of animals being kept at the zoo was alarming and the lives of the creatures were at risk.

They argued that animals’ hygiene, food requirements and health condition were severely neglected and they were being kept in very small cages and the condition of captivity at the zoo amounted to criminal treatment of living beings.

Appointment in NICVD

Another division bench of SHC on Thursday suspended the notification of appointment of management consultant of the National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases (NICVD) for two weeks.

The bench headed by Justice Mohammad Shafi Siddiqui said that the suspended official may file comments before the next date of hearing. The lawyer for executive director NICVD questioned the maintainability of the petition filed against the appointment of management consultant and the bench said that the question will be addressed on the next hearing.

The bench observed prima facie, it appears that neither advertisement for the post in question was published nor recruitment committee was constituted.

The executive director NICVD, one of the respondents in the petition, in his comments contended that the petitioner has no locus standi to file the petition and argued that the relevant laws were not applicable in the present case since no government grant was involved as the salary of management consultant.

Published in Dawn, March 19th, 2021