Mumbai police to probe AAI-GVK group deal

The Mumbai police will probe the charges that the GVK group, which runs the Mumbai airport, received undue benefits from the airport project. A first information report (FIR) was registered against GVK group chairman G V K Reddy, his son and group vice-chairman Sanjay Reddy, former-chairman of Airports Authority of India (AAI) Alok Sinha and officers of the airport police station for cheating and collusion. The police case was registered on Saturday evening on the directions of a magistrate court in Mumbai, which acted on a complaint by Ahmedabad resident Vishwas Bhamburkar, a social activist. The complaint is based on a Comptroller and Auditor General report of 2013, which examined the Mumbai airport modernisation project and blamed the AAI for not monitoring the project effectively.

"Once we know the contents of the complaint, we will respond suitably," said a Mumbai International Airport (MIAL) spokesperson.

The GVK group had taken over the Mumbai airport in 2006 on a 30-year lease from the AAI. Sinha was AAI chairman in 2013 and not in 2006. When asked, Sinha said: "I am not an investigator. Let facts come on record." The police officials who will be probed are officers from the airport police station and assistant and deputy commissioner of the area.

"The civil aviation ministry and the Airports Authority of India failed to monitor the project effectively, leading to undue benefit to the private concessionaire while the project kept getting delayed," the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) had said in a report titled 'Draft Performance Audit Report' on Implementation of public-private partnership project in Mumbai airport.

Subsequently, in a report tabled in Parliament in July, the CAG said: "There is a strong case for the government to critically review the outcomes from the PPP arrangement in MIAL... and protect the interests of government and passengers."