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Armed Forces Tribunal stays action in matter related to Mi-17 friendly fire incident till Sept 30
The military court has stayed action against the officers till the matter comes up for hearing again on September 30, said counsels Ankur Chhibber and Karn Deo Baghel who are representing the petitioners at the AFT.
The Armed Forces Tribunal on Monday stayed further action against two Indian Air Force officers in a matter related to the shooting down of a Mi-17 V5 helicopter in friendly fire near Srinagar on February 27, 2019 due to non-compliance of various statutory provisions during the IAF court of inquiry (CoI) into the incident, people familiar with the developments.
The helicopter was shot down the day Pakistan launched its jets to target Indian installations in Jammu and Kashmir in response to an Indian airstrike on a terror camp in Balakot.
The military court has stayed action against the officers till the matter comes up for hearing again on September 30, said counsels Ankur Chhibber and Karn Deo Baghel who are representing the petitioners at the AFT.
Group Captain Suman Roy Chowdhury and Wing Commander Shyam Naithani, the two officers who moved the AFT, were then posted at the Srinagar air base. While the former was the chief operations officer of the base, the latter was in charge of the air traffic control.
“Both the officers had challenged the CoI as well as its findings on the ground of violation of Rule 156 (2) of the Air Force Rules as well as issues related to the composition of the CoI,” Chhibber told Hindustan Times. He said after hearing the parties, the military court said there were violations in the conduct of the CoI and directed that no action be taken against the officers on the basis of the inquiry till September 30, the next date of hearing.
The two officers, among the five held blameworthy for the incident, moved the AFT’s principal bench in January 2020 with the plea that the IAF be directed to provide them the entire proceedings of air force CoI into the February 27 incident.
A surface-to-air missile brought down the Russian-origin utility helicopter and left six IAF personnel on-board and a civilian on ground dead, raising questions about whether ground crew, including air traffic controllers, had followed standard operating procedures.
The IAF was on its highest alert levels the day when the helicopter was brought down. It expected Pakistan to respond to the unprecedented peace-time cross-border airstrike on a Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) terror camp in Balakot on February 26.
