SC sends notice to SpiceJet for deplaning disabled woman

The Supreme Court has issued notice to SpiceJet on the plea by a cerebral palsy-afflicted woman, accusing the airline of forcibly deplaning her from a flight to Goa from Kolkata and seeking compensation for it.

A bench of Justice Aftab Alam and Justice Ranjana P Desai also sought replies from the Centre and the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) to the plea of Jeeja Ghosh, a teacher at Kolkata's Indian Institute of Cerebral Palsy, who had been deplaned on February 19 from the flight.

Ghosh also sought apex court's  direction to the DGCA for enforcement of regulations pertaining to "carriage by Air of Persons with Disability and Persons with Reduced Mobility."

She also urged the apex court to direct the airline to adequately compensate her for loss of money and wastage of time, besides the humiliation and the trauma that she suffered in the unsavoury incident.

She also submitted to the court that she had similar experiences earlier also, when in 2008 she was forced to undergo a medical examination before having been allowed to board an Indigo flight from New Delhi to Kolkata.

Ghosh approached the apex along with an NGO, Able Disable All People Together, which works for differently-abled persons.

"The similar actions by a variety of airlines in different states are also directly contrary to the provisions of UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which India had ratified in 2007," they said in their joint petition.