“She feels haunted with that scene when she was pulled out of the plane, like a criminal. She continues to have nightmares.”
This is how the Supreme Court on Thursday, in a 54-page judgment, described the condition of noted disabled rights activist Jeeja Ghosh four years after a private airline crew “pulled her out” of the plane at the Kolkata airport merely because the captain felt she was a threat to the flight. Four years later, the incident has become the trigger for the Supreme Court to direct authorities to revamp air travel laws to stop any kind of discrimination against disabled persons either in airports or on-board flights.
A Bench of Justices A.K. Sikri and R.K. Agarwal, ordering SpiceJet Ltd. to pay Rs. 10 lakh in damages to Ms. Ghosh in two months, observed how disabled persons live behind the closed door of neglect of both family and society and very few have found the key to open the door, like Ms. Ghosh.
In a major victory to the rights of disabled persons in the country, the apex court held it is the bounden duty of private airlines, especially their flight crew, to take care of every need of a disabled person.
‘Victory for all’Reacting to the order, Ms. Ghosh described the verdict as a “victory for all.” “I welcome the Supreme Court verdict. I hope that it will increase awareness and sensitivity about differently-abled persons,” she said.
The judgment, which begins with a quote that the “non-disabled do not understand disabled ones,” said unceremonious off-loading of differently-abled persons from flights — that too using physical and verbal threats — is a cause of their agony, humiliation and emotional trauma, and this amounts to “doing violence to their human dignity and infringes, to the hilt, their fundamental rights under Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution.”
“Disabled people no longer see their physical or mental limitations as a source of shame or as something to overcome in order to inspire others. What non-disabled people do not understand is that people with disabilities also have some rights, hopes and aspirations as everyone else. They do not want to depend on others ... They want to be treated as valued member of society who can contribute to the development and progress of society. For this they want the proper environment to grow,” Justice Sikri wrote in his judgment for the Bench.
‘Not limited to govt.’The Court held that private airlines, like their public counterpart, are equally liable under the numerous international covenants and instruments guaranteeing rights to persons with disabilities. “Insofar as obligations to fulfil these rights are concerned, the same is not limited to the government or government agencies/State but even the private entities [which shall include private carriers as well] are fastened with such an obligation which they are supposed to carry out,” the apex court held.
It observed that humiliations suffered by disabled persons like being de-planed, threatened with physical violence, neglected by crew or asked to sign indemnity bonds before allowed to board a flight are in gross violation of existing laws like the Civil Aviation Requirements of 2008 with regard to ‘Carriage by Air of Persons with Disability and/or Persons with Reduced Mobility’ issued by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation.
