Top air safety officer sacked

The joint director of air safety at the Directorate General of Civil Aviation, R S Passi, was removed from his post on Tuesday.

A senior DGCA official said: "He (Passi) has been relieved of his duties. This is an internal arrangement and has nothing to do with the ongoing controversy (of nepotism related to the appointment of pilots)."

Disciplinary action was taken against Passi after Spicejet wrote to the DGCA charging him with nepotism. The Spicejet complaint said Passi's daughter Garima got a job as a pilot with the airline under "extraordinary circumstances".

Garima Passi had been sacked by the airline earlier for fudging documents to procure her pilot's licence.

On Monday, the Allahabad high court had issued notices to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation and the management of Jet Airways, Kingfisher, Go Air, IndiGo and other private airlines for fleecing passengers by suddenly hiking air fares.

The court had acted on a public interest litigation (PIL) seeking cancellation of the companies' licenses for arbitrarily hiking fares during occasions like the 'Jat Stir' and the Cricket World Cup.

The court has given three weeks to the respondents to reply and fixed May 16 as the next day of hearing.

The division Bench comprising Chief Justice FI Rebello and Justice DK Arora passed this order on a PIL filed by social activist Nutan Thakur.

Thakur has alleged that airlines had hiked fares by two or three times on certain occasions against public interest and welfare.