Canadian police indicted for Kanishka crash

The damning indictment of the Canadian police for its failure to avert an avoidable mid-air disintegration of Air India’s ‘Emperor Kanishka’ aircraft by a bomb planted by terrorists will allow the airline to seek appropriate damages from Ottawa, feel legal experts .Of the 329 persons who died in the bomb blast in the airborne craft near the Irish coast while on its way to London from Montreal on June 23, 1985, 280 were Canadian nationals mostly of Indian origin, 22 Indians of which 21 were crew members, and 27 British nationals.
What was clinching, experts feel, was the clear finding of the Justice John Major Commission clearly laying the blame at the door of the police agencies of Canada. “A cascading series of errors contributed to our police and security forces failing to stop the bombing,” the Commission said, winding up the fouryear inquiry into the incident. Canada had stubbornly refused to accept liability for compensating victims even though in the late 1980s it had made part-contribution to a fund raised by Air India to pay up the families of the victims.
Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi said that with the blame being affixed on the Canadian authorities, Ottawa would be liable to reimburse Air India for the contribution it made into the fund for compensation. “Moreover, the airline can claim damages from the Canadian government for the loss of aircraft since it was the negligence of their police which led to the bombing incident,” he said. Senior advocate K T S Tulsi agreed with Rohatgi that the relatives of Indians who died in the bombing would be eligible to get as much compensation as the Canadian nationals would get after the Justice Major Commission forced Ottawa, for the first time, to talk of disbursing adequate compensation.
Tulsi also said that the airline could claim damages not only for the loss of the aircraft, but also for the future loss of income from its operation as well as loss of business due to the scare the incident caused in the minds of potential customers abroad to fly the airline.