Low-cost carrier GoAir has allegedly incurred a loss of nearly ₹38 lakh due to misuse of the IDs and passwords of its employees.
The company suspects the involvement of its travel and tour company, Connaught Place-based Explore India Journeys, as well as its staff in the crime.
A complaint in this regard was submitted to the police by GoAir airport manager Ranjeev Radhakrishnan on June 13, and an FIR was registered the next day.
FIR registered
“Inquiries were made and legal opinion was sought, after which a case was registered under Sections 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property) and 120B (punishment of criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code and Section 66 of the Information Technology Act,” said Deputy Commissioner of Police (IGI Airport) Sanjay Bhatia.
The complaint states that Explore India Journeys duped the airline by not charging the booking, cancellation and modification charges on the tickets using the login IDs and passwords of a few employees who can make the changes.
‘PNRs altered’
“Recently, our call centre team noticed that from June 6-8, certain changes were made in the Passenger Name Record (PNR) from our Delhi Airport office by our staff without charging any fees as per our modification chart. The proceeds would have gone to the company,” the complaint read, adding that the changes were done using the login IDs and passwords of four managers, including Mr. Radhakrishnan.
The others whose IDs were allegedly used were Deputy Airport Manager Harish Kumar and duty managers Parminder Singh and Preeti Pandey.
Mr. Radhakrishnan alleged that a total of 176 PNRs were altered, which were all traced back to have been booked by the tour and travel company.
GoAir suspects the role of some of their employees after their connection was found with the director of the travel and tour company, Manzoor Karnai.
“When we checked the profile of the travel agent on social network, we got to know that he is known to two of our staff members — Hiralal Yadav (Duty Manager) and Sanjay Sharma (Senior Customer Service Executive),” said Mr. Radhakrishnan.
Employees interrogated
The two were then questioned at GoAir’s Delhi Airport office, where they submitted a written statement saying they knew Mr. Karnai and had “taken certain pecuniary favours from him during their personal travel to Srinagar”.
An inquiry was also launched into the matter. GoAir, however, refused to comment on the probe report.
