New Delhi: A US national, arrested minutes
before boarding a Hyderabad flight at the IGI airport with
four live cartridges, was granted bail on Wednesday by a Delhi court.
Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Rajesh Kumar
Goel granted the relief to Stacy Woodruff, noting the
prosecuting agency's admission that the US citizen has no
criminal antecedents and he had carried the live cartridges to
the airport inadvertently in his baggage.
The court granted him bail on a personal bond of Rs
30,000 and a surety of the like amount while stipulating that
he will not leave the country without its permission.
It let him off of on bail declining the prosecuting
agency's plea to remand him in 14-days' judicial custody.
The government had earlier given an undertaking to the
court that no aircraft with noisy engines would be allowed to
take off or land at the airport at night from November 1 and
the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) also issued a
circular to this effect.
"We have fixed the limit in airport zones at 105 decibels
during day and 95 decibels during night," the counsel said.
The counsel, appearing for Delhi International Airport
Ltd (DIAL), too had apprised the bench of DGCA's rule that no
aircraft operator should indulge in any activity related to
aircraft operation that exceeds or intends to exceed the
maximum permissible noise limits at the airport during the
day.
The limits have been fixed at levels lower than most
major international airports including New York's JFK (99
decibels as limit), Rio de Janeiro (118.4 db), Paris (104.5
db) and Osaka (107 db). Three airports in London have 94 db as
the limit, said the government's counsel.
PTI
First Published: Wednesday, September 21, 2011, 21:04