Files related to 'fake' pilots missing from DGCA: Police

Police have registered a case of destruction of evidence against unknown persons in this regard and initiated an investigation into the incident, which they believe is done to protect some DGCA officials who were involved in helping people procure pilot licences using forged marksheets.

"A case under section 201 (causing disappearance of evidence) of IPC has been registered following the DGCA informing that files related to at least two pilots under scanner have gone missing," a senior police official said.

Ashok Chand, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime), said they have received three new names earlier and when asked for the papers related to one of them, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation informed them that they could not trace it.

Another investigator said the files related to two more pilots have also gone missing from the DGCA office.

"We are studying how the DGCA route their files. Once we establish how the files move, we hope we will be able to find it," he said.

Fourteen people, including six pilots and three DGCA staffers, were arrested in Delhi and Jaipur since March seven after the fake pilot scam was unearthed by the DGCA. The pilots were procuring commercial pilot licence or Air Transport Pilot Licence allegedly submitting fake marksheets.

With this, police have smashed two rackets involved in procuring pilot licences using forged marksheets. Earlier on March 26, Delhi Police had claimed to have busted a gang involved in helping pilots obtain licences using forged documents with the arrest of a senior official of DGCA and three others, including a pilot.

Pradeep Kumar (48), presently an Assistant Director with the DGCA, Pradeep Tyagi (35), a pilot who helped others procure fake marksheets, and his two associates Pankaj Jain (23) and Lalit Jain (34) were arrested from Delhi and Chennai then. Two pilots were arrested earlier in March.

Mahan Jyoti Bhattacharya (37) and Mohammed K Ansari (42) were apprehended on April five following the questioning of two pilots Abhishek Kaushik and Hiren Nagar who claimed that these DGCA staffers have taken lakhs of rupees from them for providing licences using forged marksheets.