ISLAMABAD, May 7: Bhoja Air and its owner have been told to surrender themselves to the Islamabad High Court before the court could consider their petition to quash the FIR filed against them with regard to the recent crash of its plane near Islamabad airport.
While hearing the petition on Monday, Justice Riaz Ahmad Khan observed that an accused cannot move any superior court for relief unless he surrenders himself.
He said the firm cannot file a petition to quash the FIR; however, individuals who wanted to exonerate themselves from the criminal charges might apply after surrendering themselves to the court.
Khalid Mehmood Siddiqui, the counsel for Bhoja Air, maintained before the court that the evidence so far available regarding the plane crash suggested that it was an act of God, but the police had unlawfully registered a criminal case against the commercial airliner.
He said the FIR was registered against the company owner Farouk Bhoja, officials, technical staff and others and there was a fear that police may take coercive action against any person having any stated or alleged links with the firm.
The FIR was registered under section 120-B of the Pakistan Panel Code (PPC) that relates to “criminal conspiracy”; section 286 (negligent conduct with respect to explosive substance), section 287 (negligent conduct with respect to machinery), section 302 (intention of causing death), 427 (mischief causing damage) and 109 (abetment), he said and claimed that none of the sections could be attracted in the instant case in the light of available evidence.
He pointed out that the aircraft of the airlines company were properly inspected by the airworthiness department of the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA).
According to the documents produced by the petitioner, Engineer Ghulam Murtaza, the director of the airworthiness department of the CAA, had issued a certificate of airworthiness to the plane on February 19, 2012, and it was valid till February 26, 2013.
The petition alleged that the contents of the FIR were based on hearsay and were motivational as the complainant being a junior police officer had no proper education or training relevant to the field of aviation or aircraft.
It said the respondents had placed the name of Farouk Bhoja on the Exit Control List (ECL) despite the fact that he owned only the minority of the shares of the airline company.
The petition said Bhoja Air, which started its operations in 1993, suspended its flights in 2000 due to financial and other difficulties, adding in October 2011 majority of the shares of the company were transferred to a group of aviation professionals.
The shareholders invested heavy amounts in the airlines, arranged and obtained aircraft on lease and fulfilled safety and other requirements stipulated by the CAA and launched its inaugural flight from Karachi to Lahore and back on March 3, 2012.
When the flight carrying 127 passengers, including the crew staff, was allowed to land at the airport and the aircraft approached the runway, the weather was extremely bad and at the final moments of the flight some unexpected developments took place, apparently due to microburst, causing crash of the plane.
The petition said the probe into the plane crash was underway at various levels and the government had also appointed a judicial commission to investigate the cause of the crash.
It requested the court to quash the FIR registered against the Bhoja Air and declare illegal all the adverse actions taken against the company.
Justice Khan, after hearing the initial arguments, remarked that the FIR was registered to probe the matter against some persons as the police could not register the case against the pilot of the plane.
He however, fixed May 14 as the next date of hearing when the court would hear the objections raised by the registrar office on the petition.
The registrar office had raised the objection that individuals of the company, not the company itself, could file the petition seeking quashment of the FIR.
