Man Accused Of Peeing On Elderly Woman On Air India Flight Gets Bail

New Delhi: 

A day after reserving judgement, a Delhi court today granted bail to Shankar Mishra, accused of allegedly urinating on a woman on board an Air India flight from New York to New Delhi on November 26 last year.

The witnesses named by Delhi police in the case against Shankar Mishra are not deposing in the prosecution’s favour, Patiala House Court had observed on Monday.

“The witness you (investigation agency) have named are not deposing in your favour… There is a contradiction in the complainant’s statement and Ila Benarjee’s (witness) statement,” the judge noted during the proceedings yesterday.

The Delhi Police opposed the bail application, saying “India has been defamed internationally because of the incident”, to which the judge said, “It may be disgusting, but that is another matter, let’s not get into that. Let’s go into how the law deals with it.” The prosecutor had also claimed Mishra did not cooperate in the investigation and that he had switched off all his mobile phones.

A magisterial court had on January 11 denied bail to Mishra, saying the act was “utterly disgusting and repulsive, shocked the civic consciousness and needed to be deprecated”.

The civil aviation regulator, Directorate General of Civil Aviation, earlier fined the airline ₹ 30 lakh and suspended the licence of the pilot-in-charge for three months over its handling of the incident.

A penalty of ₹ 3 lakh has also been imposed on director-in-flight services of Air India for “failing to discharge her duties” by the DGCA.