The Bombay High Court has taken suo motu (on its own) cognisance of the closure of the Nagpur airport for eight hours daily since March 2024, and sought responses from the Union Ministry of Civil Aviation, Airport Authority of India (AAI) and others. The situation was causing a lot of inconvenience to passengers, it said.
A division bench of Justices N W Sambre and Abhay Mantri here on August 2 referred to media reports which claimed that very little had been done by way of repairs to restore normalcy in the last four months. Flyers travelling to and from central India are facing hardship and inconvenience, the court said. “Considering the geographical location of Nagpur city, being the centre of the country, the operation of the airport is for the convenience of the people residing in central India,” the HC said.
The bench issued notices to the Union civil aviation ministry, AAI, the Maharashtra government’s department of Civil Aviation, Maharashtra Airport Development Company and the Multi Modal International Cargo Hub and Airport at Nagpur (MIHAN). The court directed the respondents to file their affidavits and placed the matter for hearing on August 14.