KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Thursday came down hard on the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) over failure to submit the preliminary investigation report of the last month’s crash of the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) aircraft.
A bench of the high court issued a fresh notice to CAA officials to appear on the next hearing to explain their position as to non-compliance of its directives for submission of a reply in the case.
Justice Umar Siyal regretted that neither any CAA official showed up nor any written response was submitted despite the court’s order. The national airlines’ lawyer too was absent from today’s hearing.
A junior counsel informed that the lawyer, Jawad Sarwar, was unable to turn up as he has contracted the coronavirus.
At this, the SHC judge asked why the PK-8303 crash report was not submitted to the court.
Meanwhile, an amicus curiae (friend of court) stated before the court that Federal Aviation Minister Ghulam Sarwar Khan parked the entire blame for the crash at the door of the pilot. He said it is the CAA that issues licences to pilots.
The hearing was adjourned until the third week of July.
