People Who Have Lost Their Lives, Their Families Aren't Coming: Supreme Court Dismisses PIL Challenging Air India Boeing 787-8 Crash Report

The Supreme Court dismissed a petition challenging the preliminary investigation report of the Air India (AI 171) crash that occurred in Ahmedabad on June 12, 2025. The crash, involving a Boeing 787-8, resulted in 260 total fatalities after the aircraft struck a medical college hostel complex.

The Court questioned the petitioner's "deep-rooted agenda," noting that while the families of the victims had not approached the court, the petitioner—a third party—was seeking specific technical modifications to the official report.

The Bench Chief Justice Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice Vipul Pancholi said, "People file this kind of petition. What is your deep-rooted agenda?...Those who have lost their life, their families are not coming...Nobody who has direct grievance, they are not coming...No case is made out, accordingly the special leave petition is dismissed. When you have no other work, you start filing PIL, as if we don't understand the motive...don't compel us to make any adverse remarks..."

Accordingly, the Court dismissed the petition.

The Petitioner filed an SLP assailing the order passed by the Delhi High Court refusing to entertain a PIL filed by the Petitioner herein.

The Petitioner had filed a PIL before the Delhi High Court, praying to issue direction to read down the preliminary report to the extent of exclusion of the complete sequence of events with a time chart and direct the respondents to modify the preliminary report to include the time chart of flameout and switches transition from cut off to run, whether mechanical or manual, with the time chart; and direction to the Director General, AAIB, to provide in the public domain the exact time of cutting off the fuel supply and whether the cutting off was by mechanical switches or by FADEC, and the exact time of flameout of each engine.

The High Court had said, "We are afraid, such a prayer cannot be granted as it is highly misconceived for two reasons. Firstly, the doctrine of reading down is applied by the superior Courts while interpreting the provisions of some statute and, therefore, asking the Court to read down the Preliminary Report, which has been prepared by the experts, in our considered opinion, is a prayer which is legally impermissible to be granted by the Court. Secondly, it is a well-settled principle of law that the fields, where the experts operate, should ordinarily be left to the experts for the simple reason that the Courts are not experts in the areas. The Preliminary Report, which has been sought to be read down by the Court in this Petition, has been prepared by the experts and, therefore, even if in the assessment of the Petitioner the said Preliminary Report bears some lacunae, no insistence on behalf of the petitioner can be entertained by the Court by filing the Petition for reading down such a Preliminary Report."

The Court also said that the information as sought by making the prayer contained in clause (b) in the Petition is in relation to the Preliminary Report and for the said purpose, the Petitioner could have approached the authorities concerned by taking an appropriate course under the provision of Right to Information Act, 2005 and if such an information was worthy of being given under the said provision, the same could have been provided to the Petitioner or could have been brought in the public domain.

Cause Title: Suresh Chandra Srivastava v. Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau [SLP(C) No. 11209/2026]