KARACHI: The Sindh High Court shelved on Wednesday the Civil Aviation Authority’s order that suspended operations of the private Air Indus airline.

A two-judge bench issued the order on an application of the airline which sought an urgent hearing on the grounds that the CAA had launched proceedings against it in spite of its petition against certain provisions of the National Aviation Policy 2015 which it deemed discriminatory.

Read: CAA suspends Air Indus' operations for violating safety regulations

The airline’s counsel Dr Shafaat Nabi Khan Sherwani told the court that the CAA issued a letter to Air Indus on Tuesday, stating that the issuance of ‘operation specifications’ to it was being withheld because it had instituted corrective action as directed and for its failure to fulfil obligations stipulated in the policy.

According to the letter, permission for induction of an aircraft older than 12 years was not possible because of implementation of the policy.

The counsel contended that no opportunity had been given to the airline in terms of Rule 189 read with Rule 341 of the Civil Aviation Rules, 1994 while issuing the order which was extremely detrimental to the business of his client.

He alleged that the action against the airline was based on malice and the petitioner had been condemned unheard and penalised for challenging the NAP-2015 through a constitutional petition.

After hearing the arguments, the bench suspended the operation of the CAA order of withholding the issuance of permission to the airline to operate its flights.

It issued notice on the application of the airline for July 6 when the court will take up the constitutional petition against some provisions of the aviation policy.

In its petition, the airline said the policy had been prepared by the Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University of the United States and it appeared to have been drafted for a developed country with an aim to benefit the Pakistan International Airline and Shaheen Air and to eliminate the private sector’s operations. It said the policy violated the CAA Ordinance of 1960.

The airline said the minimum paid up capital for a company applying for ‘regular public transport’ had been increased from Rs100 million to Rs500m in contradiction with the CAA Rule 179 (2) and Para 4.3 of the NAP-2015. The security deposit had also been increased from Rs10m to Rs100m.

Published in Dawn, July 2nd, 2015

On a mobile phone? Get the Dawn Mobile App: Apple Store | Google Play