Contradicting claims by DGCA and Bhushan on Kingfisher

The controversy over a DGCA note on beleaguered Kingfisher Airlines refused to die down with new DGCA chief Prashant Sukul saying there was no such document and his predecessor E K Bharat Bhushan seeking a probe into whether it was removed from the official file.

"I have gone through the papers and files. I also had an enquiry conducted. Unfortunately, we have found no such document," Sukul said. His comments came days after Bhushan, who was abruptly removed as DGCA on July 10, wrote to the government saying that pages from the DGCA file on Kingfisher's financial surveillance could have been removed from the file.

In a letter to Sukul with copies to Cabinet Secretary A K Seth and Civil Aviation Secretary Nasim Zaidi, Bhushan, now Additional Secretary and Financial Advisor in the Steel Ministry, asked his successor to take action against the "wrongdoing of a very serious nature".

In his note before being shunted out as DGCA, Bhushan had recommended sending a notice to Kingfisher asking it to pay up dues of its employees and creditors within 15 days failing which their license could be suspended.

About Sukul's remarks that no action had been suggested against Kingfisher, Bhushan said "your statement before the press appears to indicate that pages including the observations of the two (DGCA) officers and my orders thereon have been removed from the file. Apparently, this suggests wrongdoing of a very serious nature. You may like to personally look into the matter and take necessary action."