Air India Is an Unethical Outfit: Ex-Staffer Sampathkumar

A man has alleged that the top management of Air India follows unethical corporate practices that forced him to resign from his post.

By Rakesh Raman

M.N. Sampathkumar, who claims to be a former employee of India’s domestic airline Air India (AI), has levelled some serious charges against his previous organization.

In an email sent on Monday and addressed to a large group of people in his locality, Sampathkumar has alleged that the top management of Air India follows unethical corporate practices that forced him to resign from his post. He also has lamented that when he declined to become part of the unscrupulous deals at Air India, he was victimized.

“When I observed Sr Management Functionaries of AI were working against ethics, I demitted the office as I was not part of their game and hurdles were created in clearing my terminal benefits,” Sampathkumar said in his broken English although he did not explain the unethical dealings in which Air India was involved.

In his email, Sampathkumar also claimed that he has worked with different agencies in busting major corruption racket(s), including “Harshad Mehta, Telgi, Rajiv Gandhi Assassination, and fraudulently withdrawing foreign exchange from Nationalized Banks to fund arms procurement for LTTE.”

However, Sampathkumar who claims that he was in the security wing of Air India, did not reveal his role in solving those corruption cases. When RMN News Service tried to get the response on Sampathkumar’s assertions from Air India and the Ministry of Civil Aviation, the officials preferred to stay silent.

Who Is Sampathkumar?

It is pertinent to state here that currently Sampathkumar is part of the managing committee (MC) of a group housing society of Delhi that is facing serious corruption charges.

DPS Cooperative Group Housing Society in Dwarka is perhaps the only Society in Delhi where the Government of India’s top anti-corruption organization Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) and the Directorate of Vigilance of Delhi Government have ordered an inquiry through the Registrar Cooperative Societies (RCS).

While the MCs have still not responded to the inquiry, Sampathkumar is trying to cover it up unscrupulously because he himself is feeling the heat of the Vigilance inquiry.

Meanwhile, a Kashmiri migrant Davinder Singh Wazir at DPS Cooperative Group Housing Society has also filed a police complaint against Sampathkumar and other members of the MC who have been abusing their authority to constantly harass him.

In his complaint to the Delhi Police, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), and other government departments, Wazir has urged the police to file a First Information Report (FIR) against the DPS Housing Society MC members, including Sampathkumar.

[ Read: Kashmiri Migrant Tortured at DPS Housing Society Delhi ]

Sampathkumar has admitted that he was unethically recording the normal conversation with Wazir and used the CCTV (Closed Circuit Television) footage to harass the Kashmiri migrant. “All these incidents are captured electronically,” Sampathkumar has stated in his email of May 15. He has mentioned that one Neeraj Kumar Vaish was also part of this case.

Breach of Privacy

But Sampathkumar has failed to realize that when he – along with his other accomplices who were present in the Society office at the time of the incident – is recording and releasing the mundane conversation with the residents of the Society to settle a score, he and others are violating the privacy laws as their actions amount to breach of privacy.

Many believe that there was no need for Sampathkumar and the managing committee (MC) of the DPS Housing Society to make the issue public. But as the MC members are vindictive, they used the Society’s common “electronic surveillance” mechanism to harm Wazir who has been raising his voice against the corrupt practices of the Society’s managing committees.

People in the DPS Housing Society are worried, as they think that the MC of the Society is misusing its authority to record and reveal their private CCTV coverage. It is being argued that if MC members can exploit the recording of a male resident, they can record and secretly relish the recordings of female residents also, which will amount to a serious criminal offence.

Residents suggest that CCTV is supposed to dissuade the wrongdoers such as thieves while this electronic facility is not meant to be used to pry into residents’ personal activities. The residents also demand that the CCTV control must be taken away from such a mischievous MC and it must release the complete coverage along with the records of people who spend time in the Society office to look into the personal lives of innocent residents of the Society.

Moreover, many residents have demanded the termination of the current MC and they have urged the government to appoint a government administrator to streamline the working of DPS Housing Society.

By Rakesh Raman, who is a government’s National award-winning journalist and runs free school for deserving children under his NGO – RMN Foundation.

Photo courtesy: Air India