Air India 'pee-gate': Mishra sent to 14-day judicial custody

New Delhi: The Patiala House court here on Saturday sent Shankar Mishra, who's accused of urinating on an elderly female co-passenger in a drunken state on a New York-New Delhi flight in November last year, to 14-day judicial custody.

The order came after the investigating officer (IO) submitted in the court that Mishra is not cooperating with the probe. The police had moved the court seeking three-day remand of Mishra. However, the court sent the accused to 14-day judicial custody.

The court also said that prime facie, it seems that the accused was deliberately avoiding joining the investigation.

In its order, the court also said that physical presence of the accused is not required to question other witnesses and statements under Section 164 CrPC can be recorded without taking him into police custody.

On Friday, the Delhi Police had summoned the pilots and crew members of Air India flight No. 201 to join the probe and for recording their statements.

Mishra has been booked under Sections 510 (misconduct in public by a drunken person), 509 (insulting the modesty of a woman), 294 (sings, recites or utters any obscene song, ballad or words, in or near any public place), and 354 (intending to outrage modesty) of the Indian Penal Code as well as a section of the Aircraft Rules Act in a case registered at the IGI Airport police station.

The pilot of the November 26 Air India flight from New York that witnessed the unsavoury event of an inebriated man urinating on a female passenger made the traumatized flyer wait for close to two hours before allotting her a fresh seat, a co-flyer said in his complaint.

Sugata Bhattacharjee, a US-based doctor of audiology who was seated next to the accused in business class on the flight to Delhi, in a handwritten complaint to the airlines stated that the distressed passenger was made to go back to her soiled seat despite four seats in the First Class being vacant.

In the complaint, a copy of which was reviewed by PTI, Bhattacharjee said he was seated on 8A (window) in the first row of business class, next to the accused Shankar Misra who was in seat 8C.

Bhattacharjee said he was woken up midflight when Shankar fell on him.

"The incidence has a multifaceted part to it. A senior citizen was subjected to trauma due to indecency of a passenger. She being a female had no idea how to cope with the obscenity," he wrote. "I personally am bothered by the fact that the captain waited close to two hours before allotting her a fresh seat."