Delhi High Court rejects Celebi's plea challenging revocation of security clearance

India Today

The Delhi High Court has issued a 94-page verdict upholding the cancellation of Celebi Aviation's ground handling contract at Indian airports. The Turkish company had challenged the decision, citing lack of adequate hearing and violation of natural justice.

Transcript

00:00and we move into a big breaking news coming in from the court chilebi aviation the turkish

00:12company that was responsible for handling ground handling and airport services in many airport and

00:18was later on subsequently removed after a dgca directive after operations who had gone to court

00:26against it and the court has issued a detailed ruling addressing all legal questions that were

00:31raised by this turkish company the court emphasized that national security is a top priority even if it

00:37means some usual procedural steps might be limited the director general of the bureau of civil aviation

00:47security has the authority to revoke security clearances based on information from intelligence

00:54or law enforcement agencies so joining us right now is india today's anisha mathur anisha the court

01:06has clearly stated that national security takes precedence over the company's interest can you

01:11give us more details about this uh order well yes let's look at the allegations that the had been

01:19raised the arguments that had been raised by the company and the response that has been given by

01:23the delhi high court it's a 94 page verdict in detail every argument has been considered by the delhi high

01:30court bench of justice achandatta now first of all remember the celibate had celibate had raised the

01:37uh vermin that they were not given adequate hearing before their contract was cancelled that their contract

01:43had recently been renewed that this is a violation of natural justice they had also said that the

01:50airport rules there etc do not allow such a unilateral decision to be taken in response the what the

01:57court has said that is any action taken for uh and i'm right quoting from the judgment here any action

02:03taken by the direct dgca for the purpose of revocation of security clearance on the basis of inputs received

02:11from law enforcement or intelligence agency cannot be considered to be act inconsistent with the aircraft

02:17rules 2023 additionally the court has also accepted the center's uh submission to uh to show documents

02:27in sealed cover because after celibai had raised this these environments the court had asked on what

02:31basis have you decided to cancel this contract the reasoning was given by the center in a sealed cover

02:38which was opposed by the council appearing for celibai here however the court has said that this was valid

02:45that then there is necessity and i'm quoting again necessity of maintaining secrecy in respect

02:51of documents on the basis of which security clearance has been revoked the disclosure of the same would

02:56not be conducive to security and safety considerations in fact the court has also analyzed the documentation

03:04that was given by the center and has said that while they cannot go into details they've noted that there

03:10is a necessity to eliminate possibility of espionage or dual logistics capabilities which would be highly

03:17detrimental to the security of the country especially in the event of an external conflict so clearly the

03:25center taking the stand that uh celibai's presence in the the ground operations could have had certain

03:33national security implications and the high court seems to have accepted that argument additionally they've said

03:39that while principles of natural justice are in fact sacrosanct the compelling constitutional truth is that

03:46natural security concerns the security of a realm is the precondition for any rights so all of these

03:53together means that the high court has accepted the government's stance and has uh upheld the government's

03:59decision to cancel celibai's ground operations contract back to you thank you alisha for all those details so

04:06the turkish company then will continue to stay away from all ground handling and passenger services contracts

04:14that they earlier had

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