Circular seeking notice period to pilots justified: HC

Chennai, Jun 14 (UNI) Madras High Court today dismissed a petition, seeking to quash a circular of the Civil Aviation Requirement Series-X, Part-II of the Director General of Civil Aviation technical centre.

The Centre requires commercial pilots, working for any air transport undertaking to give a notice period of at least six months to their employer indicating their intention to leave the job and refusal to undertake flight duties assigned to them, failure to comply with the same, may lead to the order under Rule 39-A (2) of the Aircraft Rules.

Mr Justice Elipe Dharmarao dismissed the petition filed by Indian Commercial Pilotes Association by its Chennai based President Captain Rohan Kailasam.

In his order, the judge said considering the nature of services of the pilots, the training process and the period involved and the number of trained and experienced pilots in the country, the notice period of six months cannot be, by any stretch of imagination, termed as unreasonable.

There was no illegality in the act of Civil Aviation Technical Centre in issuing the circular. It does not suffer from any legal infirmity warranting interference by this court, the judge added.

The judge said there was a phenominal increase in the entry of private airlines in the civil aviation sector leading to acquisition of more number of aircrafts with the state of art technical.

There was a great demand for commercial pilots having rich and vast experience attracted and lured by pay packages and perks offered by private airliners, the commercial pilots who gained experience while working in government owned airlines started migrating to private airlines.

Such abrupt resignation paralysed the business operations of the government owned airlines. So the government thought it fit to issue the circular as there was a compelling necessity to introduce the regulatory measure. Moreover, the circular had only reiterated the service condition stipulated in Regulation 13 (b), the judge added.

UNI XR VV RA GC2151