Justice Okon Abang of the Federal High Court, Lagos, yesterday rescinded his earlier order which stopped the continuation of the coroner’s inquest into the June 3, 2012 crash of an MD83 Dana Air plane in Lagos.
Justice Abang, in a ruling, also struck out an application for interlocutory injunction seeking to stop the proceedings of the inquest pending the hearing of the substantive suit.
The plaintiffs, a non-governmental organisation, the Civil Aviation Round Table Initiative and its president, Captain Dele Ore, are in the substantive suit, challenging the powers of the coroner to conduct any inquest into the crash.
The judge had, on August 28, after counsel for the parties in the suit had consented, granted the interim order to put the proceedings of the inquest on hold pending the hearing of? the application for interlocutory injunction.
But Justice Abang struck out the application, and thereafter discharged the interim order.
He said, “I could not agree with the learned counsel for the plaintiffs, Collins Ogbonna, that the refusal of the application will foist on the court a situation of fait accompli. This is because if the plaintiffs at the end of the day succeed in their claim, all the steps taken by the 1st to 4th defendants will be set aside and accordingly nullified.
“Accelerated hearing of the suit is hereby ordered. The interim order I made on August 28 is hereby discharged and accordingly vacated.”
He said the issues raised in support and against the application for interlocutory injunction were “substantially the same” and as such granting them would amount to impinging on the substance of the substantive suit, adding that it would amount to shutting out the 5th to 10th defendants that had not been heard in the suit.
“The issues raised by the parties for and in opposition in the application for interlocutory injunction are substantially the same issues raised by the parties in support and in opposition in the main originating summons.
“If I decide the issue raised by the plaintiffs now the court would have decided the main matter in an interlocutory application without hearing all the parties in the suit,” Abang said.
He awarded the sum of N10,000 against the applicants in favour of the 1st to 4th defendants who had opposed the application.