The unruly behaviour of two Youth Congress activists who protested against Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan aboard an Indigo aircraft is expected to attract punishment under the Civil Aviation Requirements (CAR or the Directorate General of Civil Aviation’s rules) on “handling of unruly passengers.” To place unruly passengers on no-fly list, the Centre has recently categorised unruly behaviour in three levels.
Level 1 offences which includes disruptive behavior (physical gestures, verbal harassment, unruly inebriation and so on) can attract a ban on flying for up to three months, while Level 2 offences, including physically abusive behavior (pushing, kicking, hitting, grabbing or inappropriate touching or sexual harassment), carries a flying ban of up to six months. However, Level 3 offences, which is categorised as serious crimes that include ‘damage to aircraft systems, life-threatening behaviour and assault’, would attract a minimum punishment of a two-year ban on flying.
Further, the No-Fly ban will be in addition to other legal actions to be initiated against the offenders under various Sections in the Aircraft Rules, 1937 and the Airport Authority of India Act, 1994 and Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC). The unruly behaviour can also attract a punishment of imprisonment for a term of one year or a fine of ₹5 lakh or both, as per Rule 23 (a) of Aircraft Rules (1937) Part III.
According to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation rules on unruly behaviour, whenever an airline receives a complaint of unruly or disruptive behavior by a passenger, the incident shall be referred by the airlines to an Internal Committee, headed by a retired district and sessions judge.
The committee will decide, within a period of 10 days of the matter being referred to, that if the passenger in question falls in the category of unruly or disruptive passengers, and also decide the level in which this passenger has to be placed.
However, there are a lot of incidents where passengers behave aggressively onboard a plane, but airlines do not act against them due to various reasons. However, in the present context, the status of the ‘victim’ (Chief Minister) raises the gravity of the incident, said airline sources.
