Centre gets time for airport security job

The Delhi high court on Friday granted the Centre an extra week to take over security related functions at airports, including access to aircraft, baggage screening and aircraft search for security reasons.

The court had earlier directed the ministry of civil aviation to take over these functions at four airports, including Delhi and Mumbai, from Friday while allowing private airlines to undertake ground handling services by themselves till further order.

A bench headed by justice Pradeep Nandrajog granted time till January 7 on the Centre’s plea for four weeks time due to lack of manpower. Additional solicitor general AS Chandhiok said there was a requirement of 10,000 personnel to handle the security functions and the aviation ministry was still in the process of hiring.

The Federation of Indian Airlines has challenged the government’ s decision to implement the ground handling policy from January 1.

The body had filed a petition claiming they themselves could efficiently manage ground-handling services for their aircraft and sought the court to declare the government’s new policy as null and void.

The policy, announced in 2007, aimed at bringing down the number of agencies handling the job at six major airports in the country to three.