THE CASE OF THE PILOT WITH TWO JOBS – Ex-Airblue employee seeks CAA BoD member’s intervention

KARACHI – A former employee of Airblue has written a letter to Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) Board of Directors (BoD) member and Vice Chief of the Air Staff Air Marshal Tahir Rafique Butt, seeking his immediate intervention in the case of CAA Flight Inspector Capt Shafqat Mehmood. Sources have informed Pakistan Today that Capt Mehmood managed to have the CAA Board of Inquiry (BoI) president replaced and the terms of reference (ToR) of the inquiry being conducted against him changed.
The inquiry was ordered by the former CAA director general (DG), and CAA Works and Development Director Engr Yousaf Kamal was appointed as the BoI President with the ToR that stated that the BoI was formed to take legal action against Capt Mehmood for violating the CAA Rules.
This inquiry was sought by the Sindh High Court (SHC) over constitutional petition No 29/2009 against Capt Mehmood for violating the CAA Rules and the Defence Capability Plan Manual. Mehmood is a CAA employee but he manoeuvred his deployment in the Airblue Limited in 2007, and has been receiving additional salary from Airblue since then, compromising on the CAA Rules and the flight standards, the petition said.
In the letter to Air Marshal Butt, the petitioner – Wing Commander (r) Muhammad Nawaz Asim – said that after conducting an inquiry, the CAA BoD had admitted that the allegations levelled against Capt Mehmood were true, but Mehmood has managed to get the BoI president replaced and the ToR against him changed. Being an important member of the CAA BoD, Air Marshal Butt could direct the CAA DG to ensure fair and speedy inquiry in the light of the contents of the petition and the directions of the SHC, the petitioner requested in the letter.
“If the inquiry is unfair and not in accordance with the SHC’s orders, I may have to exercise my constitutional option to ask the SHC for a judicial investigation, which will cause embarrassment to those who are trying to mislead the court,” he said in the letter. He added that he had drawn the attention of the SHC towards the fact that the CAA flight inspector had misused his authority to victimise him and manoeuvred to make him lose his job at the Airblue in connivance with some Airblue pilots.
In the constitutional petition, dated October 3, 2009, the petitioner had stated that his termination from the Airblue was without any justification. The SHC bench, comprising Justices Gulzar Ahmed and Irfan Saadat Khan, had directed the then CAA DG to hold an official inquiry into the illegal deployment of Capt Mehmood at the Airblue against a hefty salary and other financial perks, in violation of the CAA Rules.