Business Standard has published an article claiming Indian Air Force has been ordered to put on hold its Court of Inquiry findings that the IAF helicopter shot down the day after the Balakot strike was downed by an IAF air defense missile in a "friendly fire" incident.

Six IAF personnel and a civilian on the ground died in that incident on February 27. The article has quoted top IAF sources to claim that the incident happened after officers from the ground missile battery misidentified the IAF chopper as a Pakistani aircraft on a mission to attack Srinagar.

Journalist Ajai Shukla has published it on his personal blog as well. He tweeted the link of his personal blog post with a caption: "Indian Air Force @IAF_MCC has been ordered to put on hold (until after the elections) its Court of Inquiry findings that the IAF helicopter shot down the day after the Balakot strike was downed by an IAF air defence missile in a "friendly fire" incident".

You can see the archived version of the tweet here.

Denial by IAF 

The official Twitter handle of IAF denies the claim by Ajai Shukla. The tweet by IAF reads:

Today in an article written by Ajai Shukla he has incorrectly speculated that the IAF Court of Inquiry constituted to investigate the Mi-17 V5 crash at Srinagar on 27 Feb has been put on hold. This is his imagination and IAF categorically denies this.

CoI of aircraft accidents are meticulous & time consuming. All past inquiries of aircraft accidents bear testimony to this. Proceedings of a CoI are not commented upon by IAF till completion of the inquiry in all cases.There is no connection between elections & completion of CoI.

The Indian Air Force has said that the IAF Court of Inquiry has not been completed yet and the proceedings are not commented upon till the completion of inquiry.

IAF also clarified that there is no connection between elections and completion of Court of Inquiry. Hence, the claim that IAF has been ordered to put on hold its Court of Inquiry findings until the election is false.