Plea against AAI contract to Bhadra International thrown out

A division bench of the Madras High Court dismissed two public interest litigation (PIL) petitions seeking quashing of contract given by the Airports Authority of India (AAI) to Bhadra International (India) Limited of New Delhi, a joint venture consortium partner along with Novia International Consulting APS of Denmark, for providing ground handling services at the airports at Chennai and Kolkatta.

The bench comprising Justice Elipe Dharma Rao and Justice Aruna Jagadeesan upheld the contract, while dismissing the PILs from Oveyam Ranjan of West Shenoy Nagar and Indian Airports Ground Handling Agents Association, on March 11. The petitions sought to quash the order dated September 9, 2009 of the AAI awarding the contract to Bhadra International. Petitioners contended that the eligibility conditions of the tender were tailor-made to suit Bhadra.

Rejecting the contention, the bench noted that the Federation of Indian Airlines and others comprising airline carriers had filed a similar petition before the High Court in New Delhi. Having found the weakness in the case before the Delhi High Court, the interested persons had prompted the petitioners to file the present PILs at the 11th hour stating that no other PIL had been filed in any other High Court on the same issue. The Delhi High Court had dismissed that petition.
It was clear that the PILs were filed at the behes
t of some interested persons. The bona fides of the petitioners were at stake. With material available on record, the bench said it had no doubt or hesitation to hold that the petitioners had resorted to this prompted and personal interest litigations at the behest of persons trying to create obstacles for the successful bidder to commence its operations.

Source: http://newindianexpress.com/cities/chennai/article1499239.ece

Licence given to JV for ground-handling services upheld

The Madras High Court on Tuesday upheld the licence awarded to a joint venture for providing comprehensive ground handling services to various airlines operating at the Chennai and Kolkata airports in September 2009.

Dismissing two petitions, including a public interest litigation petition, a Division Bench comprising Justices Elipe Dharma Rao and Aruna Jagadeesan said a thorough scrutiny of the entire material would not exhibit any unreasonableness on the part of the authorities.

There was no material to show that the tender conditions were tailor-made to suit the successful bidder as had been falsely alleged by petitioners.

As held by the Supreme Court, the scope of interference by court in contractual matters was very limited. Further, the AAI had fully justified its policy decision. No bias or malafide by any authority or person connected to the entire episode of award of the contract to the company had been established by petitioners.

In view of Supreme Court judgments coupled with the CBI’s report that no substantial wrongful loss had been caused to the AAI or the Centre, the Bench held that both the petitions were nothing but vexatious litigations filed only to wrongfully restrain the successful bidder from commencing its operations.

While Oveyam Ranjan, president, Namadhu Dravida Iyakkam, and S.C.C. Anthony Pillai Labour Union here filed a PIL, the Indian Airports Ground Handling Agents Association, Bangalore, filed the other petition. The common allegations, among others, were eligibility conditions of the tender of July 20, 2009 were tailor-made to suit Bhadra International (India) Ltd. and Novia International Consulting APS, a joint venture, the successful bidder.

The Bench said from the material placed on record, it could see that previously, there was no outside agency licensed by AAI to do ground handling work at airports in the country.

However, it was noticed that airline companies, which were supposed to do ground handling themselves, were really outsourcing the work to third parties without AAI’s consent or permission. Hence, the AAI took a decision to streamline the process of ground handling.

Messrs. Justices Elipe Dharma Rao and Aruna Jagadeesan said the object of the petitioner who had filed the PIL appeared to be to stall the taking over of the airport ground handling work by the successful bidder at the last minute. This conclusion was because the contract for the work was awarded by a letter dated September 9, 2009, pursuant to a public tender and security clearances were granted by the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security in April and May 2010, but the petitioner waited till December 2010 end to file the writ petition, since he knew that the successful bidder was to commence the activities by January 1, 2011.

When the aggrieved parties, if any, themselves kept mum, the Bench said it wondered as to why Mr. Ranjan, completely a third party to the entire issue, should espouse the claim of the ground handlers under the garb of PIL, that too posing himself as a “messiah of the masses” and trying to interfere in a commercial contract matter. No PIL was maintainable in commercial contract matters.

The Bench did not appreciate the petitioners’ contention that only with an ulterior motive, Chennai and Kolkata airports were clubbed together by officials.

In a commercial contract matter if a free hand was not given to government, it would result in loss to the exchequer.

Resource: http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-tamilnadu/licence-given-to-jv-for-groundhandling-services-upheld/article4503342.ece?css=print

Cathay freighter handling

Bhadra International India Limited, the authorized licensee for providing Ground Handling Services at airports such as Chennai, Kolkata, Trivandrum, Calicut, Coimbatore, Trichy and Mangalore has already established its bona fides as the ‘Front Runner Specialized Handlers of Freighter Aircraft” in a short span of time.  In a recently incident the company under the Chairmanship of Mr. Prem Bajaj successfully handled Cathay Pacific Freighter B747-400F at Kolkata with incoming load of 90392K and outgoing load of 1487K in record time well before its scheduled departure.  The experts opine that it is all because of the State-of-the-Art Global best Equipment and well motivated team of it’s operators. Incidentally, the company is also undertaking Ground Handling Operation of Lufthansa German Airlines at Kolkata as also Emirates Airlines for some time to the entire satisfaction of its customer Airlines.

Cargo load being carried by team of Bhadra International at Chennai airport

Cargo load being carried by team of Bhadra International at Chennai airport

AN 124 being serviced by Bhadra International Cargo Team

AN 124 being serviced by Bhadra International Cargo Team

AN 124 parked at Chennai Airport for Loading by Bhadra International

AN 124 parked at Chennai Airport for Loading by Bhadra International

AN 124 parked at Chennai Airport for Loading

AN 124 parked at Chennai Airport for Loading

IMPORTANCE OF UTMOST PROFESSIONALISM WHILST UNDERTAKING GROUND HANDLING OF AIRCRAFTS

A recent accident at Chennai Airport has revealed that on 03 August 2012, a freighter aircraft of Qatar Airways, on completion of its loading / unloading operations was being pushed back by a tractor that surprisingly had “no brakes” and instead a messenger with “wheel chokes” was being used to walk along and use these “Chokes as a Brake” for halting the tractor.  It has emerged that after the “Push back operations and disconnection of tow-bar” the untrained tractor operator instead of driving clear, reversed the vehicle to hit the aircraft  and subsequent damage to the aircraft that resulted in its uncalled for ‘grounding of aircrafts” for 2 days, apart from considerable expense on repair of damage to the aircraft.

It is learnt that even though the Airports Authority has issued strict orders that Ground Handling Operations are to be carried out only by the Authorized Agencies that are obliged to strictly follow the IATA and ICCAO norms and standards, for some reason, in this case, the operations were being undertaken by a non-entitled agency that had been undertaking “Sensitive Aircraft Ground Handling Operations” using outdated antiquated 20 years old equipment such as this tractor without brake and untrained half baked manpower “as the operator in this case” who reversed the tractor instead of casting away, that resulted in serious damage.

The accident amply brings out the importance of UTMOST PROFESSIONLISM whilst undertaking ground handling operations at our airports. The Government of India has brought into force the latest regulations in this regard through a Gazette Notification which are already in force.  According to this, the authorized Ground Handling Agency would have to ensure that its Ground Handling Equipment is most modern (less than 5 years old) and totally compliant of IATA and ICCAO regulations.

We had an opportunity to interact with one of the such authorized Ground Handling Agency at Chennai Airport namely M/s Bhadra International and were informed that the company attaches the utmost importance to “Safety Management System” in its overall operations.  A dedicated officer not only overseas this aspect but also undertakes internal audits every three months for critical analysis.  This is in addition to the external audits that the company is subjected to by its client airlines.  These stringent audits backed by state-of-art environment friendly equipment pressed into service by the company is yielding excellent results apart from on time performance.

Such signs of revolutionary changes at our airport is now a reality.