The Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed a plea of the
Jharkhand government against the high court order quashing an FIR against BJP
MPs Nishikant Dubey and Manoj Tiwari, who are accused of forcing the air
traffic control to allow their aircraft to take off from Deoghar airport after
sunset in 2022.
A bench comprising Justices A S Oka and Manmohan,
however, granted the state government the liberty to forward the material
collected during the probe to the authorised officer under the Aircraft Act
within four weeks.
The competent authority of the DGCA shall take a
decision in accordance with law as to whether a complaint needs to be filed
under the Act, the bench said.
The top court, in December 18, had reserved its
verdict on the appeal of the state government against the Jharkhand High Court
judgement.
The case relates to an FIR lodged at Kunda police
station in Deoghar district of Jharkhand against nine people, including Dubey
and Tiwari.
They had allegedly forced ATC personnel at Deoghar
airport to clear their chartered flight to take off after the scheduled
permitted time on August 31, 2022 in violation of security protocol at
airports.
The top court's verdict came on a petition by the
Jharkhand government challenging a March 13, 2023 high court ruling which had
quashed the FIR on grounds that no prior sanction was taken from the Lok Sabha
Secretariat as per the Aircraft (Amendment) Act, 2020. Under the law, any FIR
against an MP must be approved by the secretariat.