‘Fake licence boom in 2004-08’

“The 18 fake pilot licenses that have come to light are just the tip of the iceberg and were issued in the 2004-08 period,” aviation expert Capt Mohan Ranganathan has claimed. He also said that investigation by an independent body about the licenses granted to kin of directorate general of civil aviation (DGCA) officials will also help shed light on the issue.

To uncover more pilots like Capt Parminder Gulati of Indigo Airlines and Capt JK Verma who forged their marksheets to obtain the airline transport pilot license (ATPL) from DGCA, one needs to revisit the licenses issued in these years as most fake licenses were issued in this period and checks to verify them were done away with by the then-DGCA,” Ranganathan alleged.

It was during this period that the aviation industry started booming with the entry of low-cost carriers (LCCs) like Air Deccan (2004), Spicejet (2005), GoAir (2005) and IndiGo (2006). “With so many airlines starting operations, there was a dearth of pilots. Hence, these licenses were issued as a quick-fix solution,” he said.

According to another industry expert, the overcapacity of aircrafts which led to hiring of so many pilots leading to issuance of fake licenses to some is also the reason behind this expose. “Why has this scam come to light now? This is because we have an excess of pilots and this is a good way to get rid of them by branding them fakes,” he said, and added, “This extra manpower is also the reason behind introducing rules like medical tests of foreign pilots by Indian doctors and bringing their income in the tax ambit. That is why you will see that almost 30% of expat pilots have gone back.”

Ranganathan says that the only way to unearth the entire scam is to constitute an independent body to investigate it. “There is a need for an independent body to verify licenses of the sons and daughters of DGCA officials,” he said.  This is because most of the relatives of DGCA officials are employed with various airlines as pilots and engineers.

Meanwhile, acting tough against the errant pilots, DGCA has grounded 14 of them with more such cases likely to come to light. While commercial pilot licenses (CPL) of 14 pilots have been cancelled till Thursday evening, more such cases are being studied, DGCA sources said, adding about 10 touts have also been arrested in the case.

The move came as the Rajasthan Police unearthed a scam in which a non-existent pilots’ training school was allegedly doling out fake records to the aspirants in their bid to secure CPLs.

“Following inputs from the anti-corruption bureau (of Rajasthan) which is investigating the case, we had cancelled the licences of eight pilots. We cancelled another six CPLs on Thursday,” senior officials of the directorate general of civil aviation said.