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A sessions court in New Delhi has issued notices to Bird ExecuJet Airport Services Pvt. Ltd (a Bird Group company), the concessionaire for Delhi’s general aviation terminal, and Delhi International Airport Ltd (DIAL), in an alleged case of criminal breach of trust, data theft and violation of copyright laws.
Mark Martin, chief executive of aviation consulting firm Martin Consulting LLC, has accused Bird ExecuJet and DIAL of theft of propriety data in collusion with a former employee of the consulting firm, Navjot Singh.
Justice Narrotam Kaushal, principal district and sessions judge, South West District Dwarka court, has asked Bird ExecuJet, Singh and DIAL to respond by 2 December. Mint has reviewed a copy of the notice.
Bird ExecuJet in March 2018 hired Martin Consulting to design the apron and terminal of the country’s first General Aviation Terminal (GAT) for chartered flights that begun operations on 18 September 2020.
“Martin Consulting claims that a former employee was in collusion with BirdExecujet and DIAL and passed on copyrights and IP (intellectual property). This action was done when the agreement (between Bird ExecuJet and Martin Consulting) automatically lapsed in December 2019.
“Martin states that Bird has not formally terminated the contract till date," said Bharat S. Kumar, associate partner, Saikrishna & Associates, who is representing Martin Consultancy.
The contract between Bird ExecuJet and Martin Consulting was to automatically expire in 21 months from signing date of 1 March 2018.
“There is adequate evidence on record to affirm that data has been exchanged unauthorizedly by and between the parties. For a thorough investigation, a FIR (first information report) must be filed," Kumar added.
Kumar said that Mark Martin found three emails (dated 14 January, 16 January and 17 January 2020) from the company’s server, which were addressed to Singh by Bird ExecuJet officials that pointed towards data theft and violation of intellectual property rights (IPR). Singh left Martin Consulting on 2 October 2019, he added.
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