Action taken by airlines against Kamra in consonance with civil aviation requirements: DGCA

Director General of Civil Aviation on Wednesday said that action taken by four airlines imposing flight ban on stand-up comedian Kunal Kamra was "in complete consonance with civil aviation requirements" and that a news article has "misquoted/misrepresented" the facts stated by DGCA.

"HuffPost has misquoted/misrepresented the facts as stated by the Director-General of Civil Aviation in its news item published today at 5:01 pm. This is to reiterate that the action taken by the airlines is in complete consonance with Civil Aviation Requirements (CAR) Section-3, Series M Part VI on Handling of unruly passengers," DGCA said in a statement.

It said the matter will be referred to internal committees.

"Now the matter is to be referred to the internal committee as prescribed in para 6.1 of the said CAR. As per para 6.4 of the CAR, the internal committee is to give the final decision in 30 days by giving the reasons in writing, which shall be binding on the airline concerned," DGCA said.

"Punishment for a different type of unruly behaviour is also prescribed in the same CAR and the internal committee has to adhere to the same," the statement added.

The flying ban was imposed after Kamra heckled journalist Arnab Goswami during an Indigo flight and made a video of it.

In the video posted by Kamra on his Twitter handle on Tuesday, Goswami remained glued to his laptop and did not respond to the former's questions, jibes and comments.

Air India, SpiceJet and GoAir declared ban on the comedian until further orders while IndiGo has barred him from flying for six months.

The news report quoted the Director-General, DGCA, Arun Kumar as saying that the ban on comedian Kunal Kamra by airlines is a violation of CAR rules revised in 2017.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday slammed flying ban imposed on Kamra by four airlines and termed it as an "act of a coward leveraging his influence with the government to silence a critic".