India's budget airline, SpiceJet is facing extreme criticism and a lawsuit for forcibly offloading a disabled female passenger. The Supreme Court ordered the airline to settle Rs 1 million in damages and pay the passenger suffering from cerebral palsy that they removed from the flight in 2012. The court says it reflected "total lack of sensitivity" and "unreasonable discrimination".
Jeeja Ghosh is a disability rights activist and was on her way to Goa boarded the SpiceJet flight in February 2012 to attend a disability conference. The court said the airlines didn't give her "appropriate, fair and caring treatment", and offloading her is a violation of "human dignity", as reported by Mashable.
"A little care, a little sensitivity and a little positive attitude on the part of the officials of the airlines would not have resulted in the trauma, pain and suffering that she had to undergo," the court stated.
According to Ghosh she felt completely and totally humiliated when she was offloaded just like an ordinary criminal. The management later expressed regret for what had happened and reimbursed part of her flight costs but she was able to convince the court that the airline is making the incident less serious by asserting it was an "inadvertent" error, as reported by The Economic Times.
She persuaded the high court to regulate all airlines to make certain that the rights to dignity of disabled people are ensured. On Thursday, Justices AK Sikri and RK Aggarwal favored her request.
Justice Sikri said, "Persons suffering from mental and physical disability experience and encounter non-pareil form of discrimination. They are not looked down by people. However, they are not accepted in the mainstream either, even when people sympathize with them," as quoted by The Times of India.
Ghosh is one living example of who despite her disability had achieved so much in her life because of her toughness, courage and determination to get her distinguished as a country's valuable citizen.
