Vadra, VIPs abused status to get free air tickets, says news report

The Tehelka magazine on Friday claimed some officials, bureaucrats and other VIPs had ‘abused’ their status to get free tickets and other facilities from a private airline in gross violation of service rules and propriety.

At a press conference in New Delhi, Ramesh Ramachandran, the magazine's political editor, alleged that Robert Vadra, son-in-law of Congress president Sonia Gandhi, had got several upgrades on international sectors for himself, one of his associates and his children and his mother.

A senior Indian Police Service officer from West Bengal, who was on deputation to the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security, had taken his family to 28 destinations abroad paying only a small fraction of the cost.

According to Tehelka, the former head of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation, the regulatory of the aviation sector, a former secretary of the civil aviation ministry, former director general of the Archaeological Survey of India and former chairman of the Airports Authority of India had also ‘enjoyed favours’.

None of those named by Tehelka were available for comments. No comments were available from the airline concerned, Jet Airways.