District and sessions court rejects airlines’ appeals and fines airline for delaying compensation
ISLAMABAD:
An Islamabad court has ordered Pakistani airline Airblue to pay 5.41 billion rupees ($19.5 million) in compensation to victims of a plane crash in 2010, rejecting all appeals filed by the airline, court officials said.
The ruling was delivered by the Islamabad District and Sessions Court. It dismissed eight appeals filed by Airblue and imposed a fine of Rs 1 million for each appeal, raising the total fine to Rs 8 million.
The court said compensation was payable to families and individuals affected by the accident, which killed several passengers when an Airblue plane crashed near Islamabad in July 2010.
According to the ruling, compensation will be paid as follows:
- Sumera Naveed Choudhry and two others will receive Rs 143.189 million.
- Rashid Zulfiqar and four others will receive Rs 630.94 million.
- Muhammad Ilyas will receive Rs 1,101 million.
- Gohar Rehman will receive Rs 507.348 million.
- Junaiduz Zaman Hamid will receive Rs 996.048 million.
- Muhammad Javed Khan will receive Rs 857,025 crore.
- Ms. Salima Rajput will receive Rs 572.666 million.
- Retired Colonel Shamim Akhtar will receive Rs 606 million.
The ruling arises from a civil suit filed against Airblue for its role in the 2010 crash. The victims’ families had challenged an earlier decision by a civil judge, who awarded partial compensation of up to 10 million rupees per person.
In its decision, the court criticized Airblue for filing repeated appeals. He said the airline had lost court time by challenging the compensation awarded to the victims.
Airblue’s lawyers opposed the amounts of compensation, but were unable to convince the court.
Appeals filed by the victims are still pending before the Islamabad High Court. Earlier, the High Court had transferred jurisdiction of the case to the District and Sessions Court for a final decision.
