On March 25 this year,Air Indias Chairman and Managing Director Arvind Jadhav issued a chargesheet to V Srikrishnan,Executive Director,Headquarters,at the behest of the companys Vigilance department,accusing him of abusing his official position. According to the chargesheet,Srikrishnan,in collusion with other officials,bought 500 in-flight portable video players at six times their original price from a supplier in the US. Air India paid as much as $3,000 per unit of the player when its cost was $300-$500 when the deal was done in 2005,the chargesheet said. The players were used for less than a year and that,too,on just six or seven aircraft and are now lying in an equipment store in Mumbai. Srikrishnan,who was Director,Materials Management,when the deal was done,responded four days later on March 29,denying the charges. The very next day,Jadhav issued an order saying he found Srikrishnan not responsible for the acts alleged and exonerated him without referring the matter to the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC),as required by rules. On March 31,Srikrishnan retired from service. He was reappointed as Advisor to Jadhav and joined duty late last month even as the Chief Vigilance Officer (CVO) of the airline is reported to have communicated her displeasure over the entire episode to the CVC. Srikrishnan denied any wrongdoing. My reply to the CMD was clear and crisp. The current CMD saw that all approvals had been taken and everything was written. The charge was only about procedural errors. There was no case in the first place and the CVO could have just said that. My conscience is crystal clear, he told The Indian Express. Sources said the airlines Vigilance department had found irregularities in the deal about a year after it was signed and a probe had been initiated. The chargesheet said that Srikrishnan got the Inflight Services Department to declare the portable entertainment assistant available with US firm North Star Aerospace Inc as a proprietary or exclusive product even though alternatives were available in the market and without making any efforts to scout around for similar or comparable products or obtaining any competitive rates. You,along with (then Director - Inflight Services ) Sri Amod Sharma and the then CMD,Sri V Thulasidas,corresponded and dealt with Mr. Gerald Betts purportedly a middleman and a fly-by-night operator,M North Star Aerospace Inc (NSA).,who was considered exclusive representative for the product in India without any sort of documentation confirming the same by the manufacturer of the product, it said. M NSA and IMS (IMS providing technical support through M NSA) have supplied Air India with.DVRs (whose actual cost was around $300-500 in the market in 2005) at the cost of $3000 (reduced during negotiation from their original offered price of $3600 per piece), the chargesheet added. In his order exonerating Srikrishnan,Jadhav said he found that the case is mainly against Mr Amod Sharma,former SBU Head,Related Business,and that Mr V Srikrishnan has not been involved in the charges levelled against him. Having gone through the case papers,I have come to the conclusion that Mr V Srikrishnan is not responsible for the acts reflected in the letter dated 25-03-2011. Jadhav did not respond to a list of questions from The Indian Express asking him to explain the clean chit to Srikrishnan. Speaking on his behalf,an Air India spokesman said: The exoneration has been done on merit. He has been reappointed. When contacted,Amod Sharma,who retired in February,said: It is absolutely wrong to say that the case is against me.It is true that when I was asked if we needed the players,I said yes because our long-haul flights needed them. But the decision to buy them had been made. I was the user department and not the decision-maker. It was Srikrishnan who went abroad and got the equipment. He was supposed to follow procedure. North Star Aerospace,based in Auburn,Washington in the US,took strong exception to the references to it in the Air India chargesheet. I am a bit surprised and rather insulted that the document refers to North Star Aerospace as a fly-by-night company, said Vidya Shankar,the companys Vice-President for Sales and Marketing. NSA has been in business for 20 years and has continually serviced the Indian subcontinent. We were chosen by the US government to represent Small Business and accompanied (Commerce) Secretary Gary Locke on his trip to India last February. THE CHARGESHEET: V Srikrishnan,then AI Director,Materials Management,with others,including Amod Sharma,then Director (Inflight),bought 500 in-flight portable video players paying $3,000 per unit when cost was $300-$500 per piece. SRIKRISHNAN: All approvals were taken place,my conscience is clear AI SPOKESMAN: The exoneration (of Srikrishnan) has been done on merit. He has been reappointed. AMOD SHARMA: It is true that when I was asked if we needed the players,I said yes because our long-haul flights needed them.It was Srikrishnan who went abroad and procured a sample and got the equipment. He was supposed to follow procedure.
