On 20 March 2020, the Delhi HC disposed off standup comedian Kunal Kamra’s plea challenging the ban on flying, currently imposed on him by five airlines. The court also declined Kamra’s oral plea, Outlook India reports, for an interim direction allowing him to fly these airlines should he need to. Noting that the court was not going to entertain the plea, Kamra’s lawyers, Senior advocate Prashanto Sen and advocate Ujjwal Anand Sharmat, sought permission to withdraw it and approach the appellate authority regarding the ban that currently does not allow the Mumbai-based comedian to use any of India’s major carriers.

A bench of Justice Naveen Chawla also disapproved of the entire incident, stating that such behaviour cannot be permitted. The judge said, “If you ask me, it is certainly not allowed. You cannot heckle passengers like this. Due to your actions, other passengers left their seats to come and see what was going on.”

It’s been almost two months since standup comedian Kunal Kamra heckled journalist Arnab Goswami on that fateful Indigo flight, prompting the airline to ban Kamra from flying for six months. Following a tweet by Civil Aviation Minister, Hardeep Singh Puri that advised “other airlines to impose similar restrictions on the person concerned”, four other carriers—Air India, Go Air, Spicejet and (most recently) Vistara—imposed similar bans on Kamra.

On 21 March 2020, Kamra posted a video statement on Instagram, reacting to the judgement; you can watch it here: