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On September 15, two Supreme Court judges boarded a night flight from Tamil Nadu's Coimbatore. Justice Surya Kant and Justice KV Viswanathan were returning from the wedding of a brother judge's son. It was Sunday night and the two judges had a long list of cases listed the next morning. They decided to sit apart and use the three-hour flight time to prepare for the hearings on their iPads. At the time of boarding, it seemed like just another flight. But it was not to be.
Hearing a petition that seeks tough guidelines to tackle unruly fliers, Justice Viswanathan yesterday referred to their harrowing experience mid-air due to two drunk, male passengers.
News Agency has learned that the judges were seated in the front row, close to the galley area and the toilet. About 30 minutes into the flight, some people started complaining that a male passenger had been in the toilet for about half an hour and was not responding to knocks. Around this time, another male flier walked towards the toilet, puking into an air sickness bag. The sight left the passengers, including the two senior judges, unsettled.
The flight crew repeatedly knocked on the toilet's door, but there was no response. They had a master key but did not want to open the door since they were unaware of the male passenger's condition. Eventually, they requested other fliers to open the door. When a passenger unlocked the door, the male passenger was found drunk and asleep. He was helped out of the washroom and brought back to his seat. The judges learned that the other passenger, throwing up near the washroom, was also drunk. Seated in the first row, they experience first-hand the mid-air situation created by unruly passengers and the need for proper guidelines to tackle them.
It is but a coincidence that the petition seeking an SOP to deal with unruly fliers, filed by an elderly woman who was allegedly urinated on during an Air India flight, came up before a judge who has experienced how such actions inconvenience other passengers.
During the hearing yesterday, Justice Viswanathan said "something creative" must be done to address this issue. "Maybe strategic seating or something."
The bench of Justice BR Gavai and Justice Viswanathan has been adjourned by eight weeks and the Centre's counsel, Additional Solicitor General Aiswarya Bhati, asked to instruct authorities concerned to examine and modify guidelines to manage unruly fliers in line with global practices.