The Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed a plea by the Jharkhand government against a high court order quashing an FIR against BJP MPs Nishikant Dubey and Manoj Tiwari, who were accused of pressuring air traffic control to allow their aircraft to take off from Deoghar airport after sunset in 2022.
A bench comprising Justices A.S. Oka and Manmohan, however, granted the state government the liberty to forward the material collected during the investigation to the authorised officer under the Aircraft Act within four weeks.
The competent authority of the DGCA shall decide in accordance with the law whether a complaint needs to be filed under the Act, the bench said.
The top court had reserved its verdict on 18 December regarding the state government's appeal against the Jharkhand High Court judgement.
The case pertains to an FIR lodged at Kunda police station in Deoghar district, Jharkhand, against nine individuals, including Dubey and Tiwari.
They were alleged to have pressured ATC personnel at Deoghar airport to clear their chartered flight for takeoff after the scheduled permitted time on 31 August 2022, violating security protocols at airports.
The Supreme Court’s decision followed a petition by the Jharkhand government challenging a 13 March 2023 high court ruling that quashed the FIR on the grounds that no prior sanction had been obtained from the Lok Sabha Secretariat, as required under the Aircraft (Amendment) Act, 2020. The Act mandates that any FIR against an MP must be approved by the secretariat.
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