The airport police have registered a complaint of molestation against Captain Arvind Kathpaliya on the basis of a complaint made by a female colleague.
MUMBAI: The Sahar airport police have registered a complaint of molestation and invoked the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, against Captain Arvind Kathpaliya, an Air-India pilot, on the basis of a complaint of sexual harassment made by a female colleague.
Additional Commissioner of Police Bipin Behari told DNA, “We are awaiting the Union government’s clearance to prosecute Kathpaliya as the offence occurred abroad. We sent a requisition to the Union government on October 14, 2005.” Behari said the female pilot, in her application made first to the National Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, New Delhi, alleged that the incident took place in April 2003 when the two were on their way to Abu Dhabi airport.
“During the trip, Kathpaliya is alleged to have indulged in physical harassment of his colleague,” Behari said. A careful examination of the case raises the question whether the airlines in-house mechanism failed to address the female pilot’s complaint. Air-India spokesman Jitendra Bhargava said, “I will have to verify the details of the case before I comment on it.” Later attempts to contact him on his cell phone failed.
According to another Air-India official, the female pilot approached the national commission after exhausting all the grievance redressal options within Air-India.
On November 11, 2005, the airport police registered a case of molestation and another under the Prevention of Atrocities Act against Kathpaliya. Under section 188 of the Criminal Procedure Code, sanction is essential to proceed against any Indian accused of committing a crime against another Indian if the offence takes place abroad.
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