DGCA on Thursday informed the Delhi High Court that Indigo airline’s flying ban put on stand-up comedian Kunal Kamra in January has been reduced to three months.
It needs to be mentioned here that Kunal Kamra was barred from taking a flight on January 28 after he put up a 111-second video on Twitter where he heckled Republic TV anchor Arnab Goswami on a Mumbai-Lucknow flight.
Neither Arnab Goswami nor the pilot had formally lodged a complaint against Kunal Kamra.
Taking an offence to the flying ban imposed on him, Kunal Kamra had approached the aviation regulator against the flight ban, asserting that the airline didn’t follow it’s rule book while acting in his case.
He pointed out that the pilot in charge of the flight Captain Rohit Mateti didn’t lodge a complaint against him as it should have been done under aviation rules relating to unruly passengers for him to have gotten in the no-flying list.
The regulator did call out DGCA at the last hearing for its tweet accepting the airline’s decision to impose the flight ban and refusing to act on Kunal Kamra’s behalf an ensure representation to him.
The judge mentioned regulator that once Kamra lodged a complaint before the DGCA claiming violation of Civil Aviation Rules by the airlines, the regulator could not say it will not look into it.
But once the video got surfaced in social media, there were calls for action against the comedian.
DGCA has informed Justice Navin Chawla that the airline’s internal committee has passed this particular order of reducing the flying ban on Kunal at 9.30 am on Thursday.
