After being shunted out of the DGCA, civil aviation additional secretary E.K. Bharat Bhushan is likely to be soon shunted out of the civil aviation ministry as well, well-placed ministry sources have indicated, even as the government refuted reports that action was planned by the DGCA against Kingfisher just before Mr Bhushan’s removal. The new DGCA Prashant Sukul has also called a meeting on Friday of all scheduled airlines on the air-safety issue. In another major development that may indicate a rift within the government, senior Congress leader, former civil aviation minister and current minister for overseas Indian affairs Vayalar Ravi also came out in defence of Mr Bhushan, saying he was surprised by his removal as the DGCA, pointing out that Mr Bhushan had always “acted against corrupt practices”.
On Thursday, well-placed civil aviation ministry sources said, “Mr Bhushan is likely to be shunted out from the ministry within the next few days. The civil aviation ministry is keen on this.” In fact, sources said, Mr Bhushan himself is keen to make a quick exit from the ministry.
The government and DGCA on Thursday dismissed reports in a section of the electronic media about an alleged file noting purported to have been written by Mr Bhushan just before his removal that suggested that the former DGCA had planned to initiate action within 15 days against Kingfisher for failure to pay its employees salaries on time and alleged failure to stick to its recovery plan. “We have checked our records. No such file noting exists,” new DGCA Prashant Sukul said.
In fact, well-placed ministry sources pointed to a letter written by a serving deputy director-general in the DGCA on May 25 this year (when Mr Bhushan was still the DGCA) that read, “Reference is made to the action taken report submitted by Kingfisher Airlines Ltd. with regard to discrepancies observed during the ‘Financial Surveil-lance from Safety Perspect-ive” conducted by the DGCA in November-December 2011. The same has been examined and found to be in order. However, Kingfisher Airlines must ensure that the in-house system is made more proactive to ensure that the discrepancies observed on safety issues do not re-occur.” Kingfisher too had stated earlier that they had not received any notice from the DGCA and dismissed speculation from certain quarters about any linkage between the airline and Mr Bhushan’s removal.
When contacted, Mr Bhushan refused to answer any question about the DGCA.