The Prime Minister’s Office on Thursday sought a report from the Civil Aviation Ministry on allegations that Union Minister Kiren Rijiju and Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had caused inconvenience to passengers of Air India owing to their VIP status.
The official spokesman tweeted that the PMO has asked “Ministry of Civil Aviation for a report on delay in Air India flights on account of VIP travels in the recent past”.
The Civil Aviation Ministry, in turn, has sought a report from Air India on the two incidents.
“We are awaiting reports on the (two) incidents from Air India,” Civil Aviation Secretary R.N. Choubey said, adding it would take a call on the matter after receiving the reports.
The development came after reports surfaced about inconvenience caused to passengers of two flights of Air India since June 24, 2015 because of Mr. Rijiju and Mr. Fadnavis.
A media report surfaced on Wednesday that on June 24, three members of a family, including a child, were offloaded from the Leh-Delhi Air India flight at Leh to accommodate Mr. Rijiju along with Jammu and Kashmir Deputy Chief Minister Nirmal Singh and an aide. This also led to some >delay in the flight .
Mr. Rijiju had claimed it was not a “delay” as the departure of the flight was advanced due to technical reasons.
Another report a few days back said that an Air India flight to Newark from Mumbai >was delayed by nearly an hour on June 29 after it was reported that an aide of Mr. Fadnavis travelling with him had not carried his passport with valid U.S. visa.
Principal Secretary Pravin Pardeshi was cleared at the check-in but was held back before boarding as the passport he was carrying did not have the valid visa.
