New Delhi, Mar 3 (PTI): Joint DG charged with extending undue favours to 128 flying schools.
The government on Friday suspended a Joint Director-General of DGCA and two other staffers for granting undue concessions to 28 flying schools across the country, causing a loss of Rs 190 crore to the exchequer.
Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh, who reviewed the case probed by the Central Vigilance Commission, ordered suspension of DGCA Joint Director General A K Saran (then Deputy DG), and two other junior staffers — Parveen Kumar and D S Sada, official sources said.
The minister also ordered action against another retired official Deepak Raina, the erstwhile in-charge of the department dealing with the flying schools, if conduct rules permitted, they said.
The Airports Authority of India (AAI) has also been directed to take steps to recover Rs 190 crore from these flying clubs.
Ministry rules state that flying schools can avail concessions and pay nominal charges to the AAI only if they are registered as “education societies” and run on “no profit, no loss” basis.
However, the CVC probe found that only four of the flying schools under scanner were operating on a “no profit, no loss” basis, sources said.
The minister has also asked the civil aviation authorities to fix the responsibility of Airports Authority of India officials for not recovering the outstanding dues from the flying clubs within a definite time-frame, the sources said, adding that Singh has asked the ministry officials to lodge an FIR against the four DGCA staffers and 28 flying schools.
As per findings of the CVC as well as the Chief Vigilance Officer of DGCA, the AAI had levied concessional charges on 20 of the 28 flying schools, as eight of them were not operational at that juncture.
Therefore, AAI could collect only about Rs 4.6 crore from them, instead of over Rs 200 crore.
Earlier, following the fake pilot scam, the DGCA had found blatant disregard of norms by several flying schools across the country. The regulator had issued stern warnings, including cancellation of their permits, if they did not comply with the guidelines.
It had carried out audits of over 40 flying schools in the wake of the scam in which licenses of over 20 pilots were cancelled and several people, including some DGCA staffers and pilots, arrested.