Rijiju delayed Air India flight, 3 deboarded for him: All you need to know about the incident

In a fresh twist to the controversy surrounding Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijju delaying a flight and the family of an IFS Officer being deboarded to accommodate him and his aide, an Indian Air Force report claimed that there were instructions by the Leh airport director to delay the 24 June Air India flight from Leh to Delhi, reported NDTV . 

The IAF also confirmed that the passengers were not late for the flight and were in fact offloaded for Kiren Rijju and Jammu and Kashmir Deputy Chief Minister Nirmal Singh.

With various developments taking place, here’s all you need to know about the Kiren Rijiju- Air India controversy:

What was it about?

Kiren Rijiju found himself in the limelight when it was reported that an Air India Leh to Delhi flight was delayed for about an hour and three passengers IFS officer GV Srinivas, his wife GV Neelam and their son Dhruv Aryan lost their seats to Rijiju, his aide and J&K Deputy Chief Minister Nirmal Singh, who was accompanying the former minister, according to the ministry report.

According to sources, the aircraft doors were shut for takeoff on but the flight did not depart at its scheduled time as Rijuju, along with his PA, had to be onboard.

Kiren Rijiju and Nirmal Singh were in Leh to attend the Sindhu Darshan Festival.

Rijiju claims the flight was ‘suddenly rescheduled’

On his part, Kiren Rijiju refuted all charges against him and claimed that it was not a “delay” as the departure of the flight was “preponed” due to technical reasons.

“The departure was at 1140 hrs…I don’t know…Somehow there was a rescheduling issue…It was not a delay..It was a communication gap,” he said.

Speaking to NDTV, he said that  he was told by the District administration that the flight was rescheduled. He added that if he knew that the flight was to have taken off at 10.20 am, he wouldn’t have taken it.

“I was supposed to return from Leh in a helicopter. But due to bad weather, the helicopter could not come from Srinagar to take me from Leh. Then the Jammu and Kashmir Deputy Chief Minister asked me to accompany him in the Air India flight which was supposed to depart at 11.40 AM.” he said, explaining his side of the incident.

“But to our utter surprise, when we reached the Leh airport at 10.20, we found that the door of the aircraft was closed and it was about to take off. Then the Deputy Chief Minister lodged a strong protest with the Civil Aviation Minister for the unannounced rescheduling of the aircraft,” Rijiju added.

He also said that after sometime, he and Singh were allowed to board the plane “and we could fly.”

On the allegation of passengers having to deboard to accomodate him and his aide, Rijiju maintained that he was unaware of any such thing.

“I am totally unaware whether anyone was asked to deboard. If it was done, it is completely wrong and unacceptable,” he said.

This boarding pass of Dy CM of Jammu & Kashmir shows that the flight was wrongly & suddenly preponed to depart at 10:20…

Posted by Kiren Rijiju on  Wednesday, July 1, 2015

Why did Nirmal Singh file a complaint?

Nirmal Singh , who was accompanying Rijju backed the latter’s claim that the Air India flight was indeed rescheduled by the flight staff and was not delayed by the minister.

The Deputy CM also filed a complaint against Air India with Minister for Civil Aviation Ashok Gajapathi Raju in which he stated that the Leh-Delhi flight was originally scheduled to depart at 11.20 am on 24 June, however, at around 9.53 am, Singh received a message from an airport official that the flight had reached early and was ready to leave.

But, to his surprise when he reached the airport at around 10.48 am, he was denied entry to the flight as the pilot had already closed the doors. Singh claimed this was wrong on the part of the pilot as the boarding pass mentioned that the boarding time starts from 10.40 am.

When he went over to the tarmac to have a word with pilot, Singh said that instead of apologising for the inconvenience, the pilot was rude to him and created a scene. This behaviour prompted him to file a complaint against the disservice of Air India officers.

J&K Deputy CM Nirmal Singh files a complaint with Minister for Civil Aviation, Ashok Gajapathi Raju against Air India pic.twitter.com/ZswuUuAD8j

— ANI (@ANI) July 2, 2015

With PTI inputs