New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to examine the controversial deal entered during the UPA regime between Jet and Etihad airways. A bench of Chief Justice T.S. Thakur and Justice Uday Lalit, however, asked BJP leader Subramanian Swami to amend his writ petition by challenging the agreement between the two airlines.
In his petition, Dr Swami alleged that there had been a grant of largesse of national asset in favour of a foreign airline (Etihad Airways) resulting in undue enrichment and enormous pecuniary advantage to such foreign airline at the cost and expense of the public, national and domestic airlines as well as airports.
He said: “In order to facilitate the execution of this colossal fraud on the Indian exchequer, the foreign airline (Etihad) has agreed to guarantee personal loans as well as pay a premium towards its foreign investment in a domestic airlines — Jet Airways. Such grant of largesse is in the form of an unprecedented increase of capacity entitlements through execution of bilateral or MoU in favour of Abu Dhabi under existing Air Service Agreement between the government of India and the United Arab Emirates.”
