Post apology letter, MoCA mulling to lift travel ban on Gaikwad

Hours after Ravindra Gaikwad wrote an apology letter to Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapati Raju requesting to lift the travel ban imposed on him, the ministry on Thursday said the letter of the Shiv Sena MP is being examined.

According to sources, a meeting took place between Minister of State for Civil Aviation Jayant Sinha and Air India Chairman and Managing Director (CMD) at Airlines Housex where the process to lift the travel ban on Gaikwad, imposed by all airlines post his altercation with an Air India employee was discussed.

Expressing his regret for thrashing an Air India employee last month, Gaikwad said it could have been no one's intention to have let the situation aggravate to the level that it eventually did.

"While the ongoing investigation will bring out the factual sequence of events to fix, this incident may kindly not be seen as a reason for likely recurrence of such an event in future also," he added while requesting that this restriction be lifted.

This came hours after Air India, according to sources, decided to lift the travel ban on the Shiv Sena leader if he tenders an apology.

Earlier today, the Shiv Sena threatened to boycott the NDA meeting if the ruling dispensation failed to resolve the matter by April 10.

During the Zero Hour, there were unruly scenes with the Shiv Sena members protesting against the ban and even thumping the desk of the Civil Aviation Minister in anger.

Gaikwad tendered an apology to the Parliament but insisted that he owed no apology to the airline official as he sought removal of the ban imposed on him by domestic airlines.