Who will pay Rs 3.5 crore for parking Purulia plane at city airport?

“Nevertheless, we shall not let go of the plane till someone foots the bill or we shall have to sell it for scrap and recover the dues after the case is over,” a senior AAI official told Newsline.

The dues are, by any reckoning, a fat sum to pay for an ownerless aircraft, especially since aviation experts have written it off as little more than junk. “An aircraft has to be tested for airworthiness once a year. But the Purulia plane has been simply lying in the sun for nearly five years, and is obviously in bad shape,” says Captain A Kapur, of the Federation of Indian Pilots.

The fate of the plane also reflects how inconclusive the case has turned out. Prime suspect Kim Davy walked out of Mumbai airport and disappeared soon after the plane landed on December 22, 1995, the five Latvian crew were let off by a Presidential pardon recently, and with only pilot Peter Bleach jailed in Calcutta, the Central Bureau of Investigation itself seems to have lost interest in the case.

Meanwhile, AAI’s parking meter is ticking as it has since the plane was forced down at Mumbai airport on December 22, five days after it had showered its lethal cargo of AK-47 assault rifles, rocket launchers and grenades over Purulia in West Bengal.

Two police constables brave the sun and boredom to maintain vigil around the sealed aircraft, which has been exposed to the elements for five years and continues to be the most unique court property in the country.

Meanwhile, a writ petition seeking direction to the Centre to dispose of a petition seeking remission of the sentence awarded to Britisher Peter Bleach in the Purulia arms drop case pending before the President of India has been filed in the Supreme Court.

A Calcutta-based legal activist has asked for Peter Bleach to be let off since remission had already been granted on July 21 to the five Russians convicted in the case. Bleach who was tried, convicted and sentenced with them for the same offence, is legally entitled to the same remission under article 14 of the constitution.

The petitioner says under article 72 of the constitution and section 432 of the CRPC even though the president has the right to grant any time any remission of sentence to any person convicted, he has no right to discriminate among the persons convicted and sentenced and exercise his discretion by granting remission to a limited class of persons excluding others similarly situated.

On January 31 and February two last, Bleach and five Russian aircrew were convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for abetting conspiracy to wage war against the government of West Bengal under the arms act for dropping a huge quantity of arms and ammunition at Purulia.