New Delhi: The woman who was urinated on by a fellow passenger on an Air India flight in November 2022 has approached the Supreme Court, filing a petition that seeks directions to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DCGA) and the Ministry of Civil Aviation to frame guidelines on how flight crew should deal with unruly or disruptive passengers.
Air India was strongly criticised for inappropriately handling the infamous incident, with the matter coming to light more than a month after the flight from New York landed in Delhi. The petitioner accused the flight crew of coercing her to reach a settlement with the offender, and that she was not assigned an alternate seat for more than two hours.
In the petition, the woman says that she and her family members sent emails to Air India CEO Campbell Wilson and Tata Sons chairman N. Chandrasekharan on November 27, 2022 – one day after the incident – demanding action to be taken so that such acts are not repeated. They did not receive a response.
The petitioner says that in countries like the US and UK, the aviation authorities have strict guidelines in place to handle unruly behaviour by passengers. There are also rights and recourse for passengers if treated unfairly or unlawfully by airlines, the petition says.
“Most airlines internationally, have plastic handcuffs or duct tape to restrain such unruly passengers so that they are not a threat to other passengers. Such mandates are clearly absent in India,” it adds.
The DGCA issued guidelines in May 2017 for the handling of unruly or disruptive passengers, but they do not have an “explicit zero-tolerance policy” with respect to such behaviour, the petition says. “Also, these guidelines do not consider being drunk or inebriated on its own as unruly/disruptive behaviour,” it says.
“There are also multiple barriers to filing and following through with complaints for passengers who are victims of unruly behaviour because of lack of cooperation and responsiveness from airlines, fear of unwanted media publicity, uncertainty about the nature of penalties for perpetrators, and out of pocket costs for legal and travel expenses,” the petitioner argues.
The Supreme Court of India. Photo: Pinakpani/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Seeks directions from top court
She sought the Supreme Court issue orders to the DGCA to include an explicit zero-tolerance policy with respect to “unruly/disruptive behaviour”, which would mandate reporting to it and to law enforcement. Failing to do so would mean action being taken against the airlines, the petition seeks.
The civil aviation ministry and the DGCA should set guidelines on alcohol policy on international flights of Indian carriers to protect passengers and airline staff, including “setting limits on the quantity of alcohol served, without any discrimination based on the class of travel”, it says.
The DGCA’s ‘Passenger Charter’ should be amended to include the rights and recourse for passengers subject to any sort of abuse by staff or passengers, “which should include redressal mechanisms for victims via an Ombudsman and also parameters of compensation”.
The petition also wants the Supreme Court to direct media organisations to “desist from reporting” on the criminal proceedings filed against the perpetrator on the petitioner’s complaint “in order to
prevent further shaming and embarrassment for the Petitioner and the Perpetrator, and to ensure that victims are not deterred from reporting such incidents in the future and witnesses are not deterred from coming forward”.
This, the petition says, is warranted because the “media storm” that ensued after the incident became public has caused “shaming, embarrassment and further trauma for the Petitioner and the Perpetrator”.