AI Urination incident: Air India imposes four-month flying ban on Shankar Mishra

Air India has imposed a fourmonth flying ban on Shankar Mishra who is accused of urinating on a woman copassenger onboard a flight in November last year a source said on ThursdayThe incident happened on an Air India flight from New York to Delhi on November 26 2022 Currently Mishra is in jail and the case is before a Delhi court He was allegedly in an inebriated state at the time of the incidentThe source said the airline has imposed a flying ban on Mishra for four monthsThe flying ban was recommended by a threemember internal committee set up under DGCA normsSpecific details could not be immediately ascertainedOn January 4 Air India said it had imposed a 30day travel ban on Mishra but did not disclose the specific date from which the ban came into forceThe Directorate General of Civil Aviation DGCA on January 5 issued notices to the officials and crew of the New YorkDelhi flight asking why action should not be taken against them for dereliction of duty while handling the November 26 urination incidentThe conduct of the concerned airline appears to be unprofessional and has led to a systemic failure the regulator had said about the incidentDGCA has issued show cause notices to the accountable manager of Air India its director inflight services all the pilots and cabin crew members of that flight as to why enforcement action should not be taken against them for dereliction of their regulatory obligationsUnder DGCA rules the airline concerned is responsible for informing the regulator within 12 hours of landing of the aircraft in case of any incident of unruly passengers passenger ragemisconduct reported in their flight the statement saidAlso Read Need stricter punishment on alcohol served on overseas flights say expertsBesides the airline concerned has to set up a threemember internal committee It will have a retired District and Sessions Judge as Chairman a representative from a different scheduled airline as a member and a representative from a passengers association or consumer association or retired officer of Consumer Dispute Redressal Forum as the third memberThe committee can decide on the duration of flying ban on the unruly passenger within 30 days and there could be a lifetime banDuring the pendency of the decision by the committee the airline concerned may ban such unruly passenger from flying for a period of up to 30 days as per the rulesAfter the committee takes the decision the airline should maintain a database of all such unruly passengers and inform the same to DGCA which is the custodian for maintaining the nofly listThe woman who had accused Mishra of urinating on her on the flight on January 13 rejected the claims made by him that she seems to have urinated on herself saying these are completely false and concocted and by their very nature are disparaging and derogatoryShankar Mishras counsel while arguing against a police petition seeking revision of an order passed by a magisterial court refusing his custodial interrogation on January 12 claimed that he did not commit the offence and that she urinated on herselfOn January 8 Tata Group Chairman N Chandrasekaran admitted that Air Indias response to the incident of the drunk passenger urinating on the woman should have been much swifterWe fell short of addressing this situation the way we should have he had said in a statementThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever