'Airline should have waited for internal enquiry': DGCA chief says IndiGo's flying ban on Kunal Kamra violates rules

A day after IndiGo suspended comedian Kunal Kamra for six months for questioning Arnab Goswami about his journalism on a flight to Lucknow, the director-general of Directorate General of Civil Aviation said the ban is in violation of the Civil Aviation Requirement rules.

Huffington Post spoke to Arun Kumar, the director-general of the DGCA, who said the ban is "a clear violation of the Civil Aviation Requirement (CAR Section 3, Series M, Part Vl on “Handling of Unruly Passengers) rules revised in 2017".

The report says: "Kumar said that as per DGCA rules, in case of any unruly behaviour restricted to verbal confrontation, the airlines should first impose a temporary ban of 30 days on the passenger and conduct an internal enquiry headed by a retired judge into the incident."

Kumar added: "The airline should have waited for the internal enquiry to be completed before putting the passenger on the no-flyers list for six months."

Soon after IndiGo's ban, civil aviation minister Hardeep Singh Puri tweeted that he was "left with no option but to advise other airlines to impose similar restrictions on the person concerned".

Several other airlines promptly fell in line, making sure to tag Puri in their tweets. Unlike IndiGo's very specific six-month ban, they "suspended" Kamra from flying with them "until further notice".

Kumar commented on this to Huffington Post, saying: "Air India has been wise enough to impose a ban for an indefinite period and is awaiting the outcome of the enquiry report conducted by the airlines. In incidents restricted to verbal confrontation, a ban should not be more than three months."