Supreme Court stays Meghalaya High Court order allowing flights from Umroi

The Supreme Court on Thursday stayed an order of the Meghalaya High Court which had put a suo motu order on low-cost private airlines to begin commercial flight operations from the newly-inaugurated Umroi airport in the state without hearing them.

Two of the airlines — Indigo and SpiceJet — came to the apex court seeking stay of the December 7 order passed by a bench of the High Court headed by its Chief Justice Dinesh Maheshwari. Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, who appeared for Indigo airline, stated that there was no petition before the court as it passed suo motu orders against the airline to suggest a date by December 14 for operating flights from the state runway.

Citing that the airport was not equipped with fire fighting equipment, Rohatgi said running a plane was not like a taxi service which can be started just like that. He further added that the Meghalaya High Court cannot regulate air routes for operating flights as this is done under a prescribed process followed by the Ministry of Civil Aviation. The bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) Ranjan Gogoi, Justices SK Kaul and KM Joseph agreed with Rohatgi and stayed the operation of the HC order.

The new airport is approximately 30 kilometres from the capital city of Shillong. The HC on December 7 directed the Airport Authority of India (AAI) and Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) to hold meetings with airline operators and decide on a date to commence flights from the airport. Once the DGCA allocates routes, private airlines have to decide whether it should operate in these sectors depending on the availability of fleet and commercial viability of the routes.

Plea to SC

Indigo and SpiceJet moved SC seeking a stay on Meghalaya HC order citing that the airport was not yet equipped with necessary mechanisms.