The Centre has taken serious view of the reported offloading of three passengers from an Air India leh-Delhi flight to make way for Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju and Jammu & Kashmir Deputy Chief Minister Nirmal Singh and asked an explanation from the Civil Aviation Ministry. The Prime Minister office has also asked the Ministry to explain why Mumbai-New York flight was delayed by over one hour on June 29 to accommodate Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis’ Principal Secretary.
later in the evening, Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathy Raju apologised to the incidents happened in Air India flights, causing troubles to the passengers.
The Central Government official spokesman tweeted that the PMO has asked “Ministry of Civil Aviation for a report on delay in Air India flights on account of VIP travels in the recent past”. The Civil Aviation Ministry, in turn, sought a report from Air India on the two incidents.
“We are awaiting reports on the (two) incidents from Air India,” Civil Aviation Secretary RN Choubey said, adding it would take a call on the matter after receiving the reports.
“As Civil Aviation Minister, I apologise to all those affected (by these incidents),” the Civil Aviation Minister told a Press conference here in the evening in an attempt to end the controversy. He said if any rules had been violated, “We will ask why it happened and that it should not happen”.
Rijiju too tendered an apology even as he insisted that he was not aware that passengers were offloaded to accommodate him. “Air India, being a Government PSU, and we as Ministers, have the moral responsibility if any passenger has undergone any inconvenience. We must say sorry to them on behalf of the Government and ensure that such incidents do not occur in future,” he told the media in Darjeeling.
Nirmal Singh, however, was unapologetic, saying he had “not misused” his status and in turn accused the pilot of misbehaving with him. He termed the allegations against him as “media trial” and said the question about deboarding should be asked to the airlines.
“It is media trial. You are doing injustice to democracy. We are targeted because of being politicians. We have not misused our powers. This is wrong perception which is being spread. I am not going to accept it,” Singh told reporters on a sidelines of an event in Udhampur in J&K.
“We have no authority to de-board anybody. We did not do it. Just ask this question to Air India. We did not know about it,” he said.
Asked whether he would apologise for VVIP “racism”, the Deputy Chief Minister said, “Apology should come from Air India. They have also to apologise to me also for the misbehavior of their pilot with me.”
On the issue of delay caused to the flight, he said, “I reached well before time and doors of plane had been shut before that by the pilot. Pilot misbehaved with me. It took off later at the right time and reached Delhi 10 minutes before its scheduled time. It was announced by the pilot.”
He said, “It is an established norm of the Government to accommodate Ministers flying for immediate meetings.” Defending Rijiju, Singh said he was to travel to Delhi due to urgency. “He (Rijiju) was scheduled to fly in a BSF chopper but it could not materialise in view of bad weather,” added the J&K Deputy CM.
“We did not know it then that some people have been de-boarded from the plane but when we boarded the plane, passengers told us about this that such an incident has taken place,” he said.
Maintaining that “this has been done by Air India as per rules which we were told,” Singh said, “He (Rijiju) is a Union Minister. He has to attend the assignments next day. I had to participate in a programme of smart cities chaired by the Prime Minister in Delhi. I had no alternative. There was no flight after that and Rijiju also had assignment next day and he is a Z+ protectee and it is a rule.”
The incident occurred on June 24 when Rijiju, his assistant, and Nirmal Singh were to travel from leh to Delhi. To accommodate them, three members of the family of an IFS officer, including a child, were disallowed from boarding the flight AI-446, according to reports. This also delayed the flight.
The revelation came days after a similar report which said that an Air India flight to New York from Mumbai was delayed by nearly an hour on June 29 as Fadnavis’ Principal Secretary Pravin Pardeshi did not have valid US visa. Pardeshi was cleared at the check-in but was held back before boarding as the passport he was carrying did not have the valid visa.
However, Fadnavis said certain media organsiations were floating “blatant lies” about the incident. “Enough is enough. Once I am back to India, I will initiate proceedings of criminal defamation, “ the Chief Minister tweeted in the evening, reiterating he had no role in the delay of the flight.