New Delhi: A second Air India pilot has been
found to have got his flying licence by allegedly submitting
forged marks certificates and was grounded, making him the
fifth pilot to be caught for using fraudulent means to procure
a license.
The state-owned airline has desrostered the pilot,
identified as Arjun Giare, pending enquiry for allegedly
submitting a forged Class 10 certificate to show that he met
the minimum age limit to become a pilot. The airline earlier
suspended Capt J K Verma, who is under arrest, on similar
charges.
The pilot, identified as Arjun Giare, "has been taken
off duty pending enquiry. He is not flying now," a senior
official of the national carrier said today.
After the arrest of IndiGo pilot Capt Parminder Kaur
Gulati on charges of producing fake marks card last week, the
DGCA, while examining documents submitted by about 1,700
pilots to get licences in the past one year, detected that
Capt Swaran Singh Talwar (MDLR) and Capt Meenakshi Singhal
(IndiGo), besides Air India`s Verma, had submitted forged
result cards.
All these four cases are now being investigated by the
police who have so far arrested Gulati and Verma. Police said
Talwar and Singhal are "absconding".
Sources said that in November 2000, Giare`s licence was
cancelled by the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on
similar charges. He was also reportedly caught when he
appeared for his Instrument Pilot Rating at the Fort Worth
Aviation testing centre in the US.
The de-rostering of Giare came after the government
ordered investigation into all pilot licences issued in the
past and proposed to set up an expert committee to look into
the current examination system.
Civil Aviation Minister Vayalar Ravi yesterday informed
Parliament that he had asked Directorate General of Civil
Aviation to examine all the licences issued in the past.
Till date, about 4,500 Airline Transport Pilot Licences
(ATPLs) have been issued.
Ravi also proposed to set up an expert committee in the
Ministry to examine the current examination system, the
need for introducing e-technology and new procedures and
processes besides evolving an effective system of cross-
verification of documents filed by candidates for various
licences in DGCA.
PTI
