PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court on Thursday put on notice the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), Ministry of Defence and other respondents in a writ petition filed by an MNA, Marvi Memon, against the crash of an Air Blue flight resulting in death of 146 passengers.A two-member bench comprising Justice Miftauddin Khan and Justice Syed Sajjad Hassan Shah issued the notices after arguments by the petitioner’s counsel Umer Farooq Adam.Marvi Memon accompanied by family members of the victims of crash from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa also attended the court proceedings.The petitioner has prayed the court to direct the federal government for constituting an independent board of inquiry to determine and make public the cause of crash.On July 28, 2010, an Air Blue flight ED 202 crashed into Margalla hills, Islamabad killing all 146 passengers and six crew members on board.Umer Farooq argued that like other previous plane crashes, neither the inquiry report of this crash had been made public, nor the families of victims had been taken on board about the progress of investigations.
He requested the court to direct the Federal Government to constitute an independent Board of Inquiry to determine and make public the causes that led to the crash of Air Blue Flight ED 202.The petitioner has requested that in public interest, all Air Blue flights operating inside or out side Pakistan should be grounded till the findings of an independent Board of inquiry were made public and a definite finding was made that the aircraft were safe to fly.The petitioner stated that the CDA should erect a memorial for the passengers buried in H-11/2 Islamabad graveyard and to identify each grave to the satisfaction of the families of the victims.Meanwhile, Marvi Memon told media persons outside the courtroom that she had raised the issue in the Parliament, but it had failed to give justice to the affected families due to which she had to approach the judiciary.“Judiciary is the last hope and we believe that it would do justice to the families of those killed in the air crash,” Ms Memon added.On the occasion, father of one of the victims, Col Shamim Sheikh, said that on the one hand their children were killed, while on the other, the concerned authorities ridiculed them.He added that we wanted to know the cause of the death of their children and who was responsible for that – Dawn
