Sacked Air India engineer serves contempt notice to airline

A senior engineer,an employee of the national carrier,Air India,who faced the ire of the management for speaking out despite gag orders in the aftermath of the Mangalore air tragedy,served a contempt notice to the top brass of the company for not allowing him to join duty even after securing a favourable order against his dismissal.

Chief aircraft engineer S Surendranath,one of the veteran technical staff with over 30 years of experience in the field,was terminated from service for going public with his criticism against the management. He,along with a few others of the All India Aircraft Engineers Association (AIAEA),charged that the senior officials had allowed a junior technical staff of a private airlines to certify a relief aircraft that flew from Bangalore to Mangalore soon after the tragedy. The resultant disciplinary action saw the termination of 55 employees and suspension of 32 others.

In their defence,they claimed that they had tried communicating with the Director General of Civil Aviation and the airline management,and went to the press only after complete silence from them.

While the management held talks with a few of the dismissed employees and took them back under several conditions,Surendranath approached the Madras High Court challenging his termination,which granted him an interim stay.

However,the security staff stopped him at the entry point and he was not allowed inside the company premises on February 11 when he reported for duty,citing orders from above.

Surendranath moved the High Court with a contempt of court petition. Admitting it on Tuesday,Justice K Suguna ordered issuance of notices to Air India CMD Arvind Yadav and executive director of southern region A N Parthasarathy,who had signed the termination order.