Mumbai: Hearing the petition, the Bombay High Court on Wednesday asked the pilot union to provide information such as the number of pilots deployed for the ‘Vande Bharat’ mission and their working hours.
It also tries to find out how many pilots have been vaccinated for Covid-19 so far.
A bench of the Justice Division Dipankar and Justice G S Kulkarni heard the petition submitted by the Indian pilot Federation who was looking for compensation for the pilot who died of Covid-19 or contracted viral infections when carrying out their duties.
Petitions demand priority in vaccination and insurance protection for pilots, say they provide important services.
The trade union government must provide compensation for each Rs 10 Crore for the pilot family who died of Covid-19, he said.
Senior Advocate Prasad Dhakefalkar, appeared for the applicant, stating that since February 2021, at least 13 Indian pilots have died of Coronavirus infection.
Pilots are frontline workers who have worked through a pandemic and they must get priority in vaccination other than compensation, he said.
The Indian government launched the mission of Vande Bharat to bring back Indians stranded in foreign countries after the Coronavirus outbreak and locking.
Bench said before hearing a further request, it wanted to have facts and numbers.
“We want to know how many pilots have not been vaccinated, how much is vaccinated, how many pilots are deployed on Vande Bharat flights …
what are their working hours and so on,” said the court.
The bench directed the federation to submit an affidavit and posted a problem to hear more after two weeks.