DGCA and Bhushan spar over KFA noting

The controversy over a Director-General of Civil Aviation note on beleaguered Kingfisher Airlines (KFA) refused to die down, with new incumbent  Prashant Sukul saying there was no such document and his predecessor E K Bharat Bhushan seeking a probe into whether it was removed from the official file.

“I have gone through the papers and files. I also had an enquiry conducted. Unfortunately, we have found no such document,” Sukul told reporters here.

His comments came days after Bhushan, who was abruptly removed as the DGCA on July 10, wrote to the government saying that pages from the DGCA file on Kingfisher’s financial surveillance could have been removed from the file.

In a letter to Sukul with copies to Cabinet Secretary A K Seth and Civil Aviation Secretary Nasim Zaidi, Bhushan, now additional secretary and financial adviser in the Steel Ministry, asked his successor to take action against the “wrongdoing of a very serious nature.”

In his note before being shunted out as the DGCA, Bhushan had recommended sending a notice to Kingfisher asking it to pay up dues of its employees and creditors within 15 days failing which their license could be suspended.