State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission
Nisha Dixit vs Airport Authority Of India Ltd on 6 November, 2007
IN THE STATE COMMISSION : DELHI IN THE STATE COMMISSION : DELHI (Constituted under Section 9 clause (b)of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 ) Date of Decision: 06-11-2007 Complaint Case No. C-69/2005 Smt. Nisha Dixit, Complainant S/o Late Vikas Dixit through R/o C-3/100 A, MIG Plots, Mr. Bikram Singh Keshav Puram, Delhi. Advocate. Versus 1. Airport Authority of India Ltd, Opposite Party No.1, Guwahati Airport, Through Guwahati-15. Mr. Digvijay Rai, Also at: Advocate. Rajiv Gandhi Bhawan, Safdarjung Airport, New Delhi. 2. Jet Lite (India Ltd.), Opposite Party No.2 A-110, Street No. 5, Through Mahipal Pur Extn., Mr. K.K. Khurana with National Highway No. 8, Mr. Sanjay Pal & New Delhi-110037. Mr. A.K. Mehta, Advocates. CORAM : Justice J.D. Kapoor- President Ms. Rumnita Mittal - Member
1. Whether reporters of local newspapers be allowed to see the judgment?
2. To be referred to the Reporter or not?
JUSTICE J.D. KAPOOR, PRESIDENT (ORAL) Complainant is a widow of a passenger (Late) Vikas Dixit who died at the Airport itself before boarding the flight of OP No.2 due to lack of adequate emergency medical facility. She has, through this complaint, sought compensation mainly against OP No.1 to the tune of Rs. 92 lacs. It is claimed that the deceased was a young man of about 30 years and was working as Sales Manager and possessed a sound health and had never suffered any major disease. He was on business tour from Calcutta to Guwahati. He was duly checked in and was issued boarding pass by OP No.1 at Guwahati Airport for flight No. S 2-312Y, scheduled to depart at 17:00 hrs.
2. That around 16:00 hours, while showing his boarding pass to the security and the staff members posted at Gauhati Airport, he developed uneasiness and accordingly he complained about the same to the staff and security members of the OP No.1 posted at the airport. But no proper step was taken even after serious complaint of chest pain registered by the deceased. No doctor was available at the place of occurrence, nor the staff took the initiative to inform the doctor. As a consequence he collapsed at the Airport and still no immediate and proper steps were taken either by the employees of OP No.2 Airlines or by the staff of OP No.1.
It was when some fellow passengers raised hue and cry that he was sent to a nearby nursing home, namely Green Land nursing home at Gauhati i.e. after a lapse of about one hour and was declared having brought dead.
3. While denying any deficiency in service on its part, OP No.1-Airport Authority of India has raised the following pleas in its defence :-
(a) The Airport Terminal Management Manual provides only for first aid in emergency situations within available resources to give some relief to the sick and/or delay the process of disease and is provided at the site of occurrence. The basic objective being transportation of the sick person comfortably and quickly to the site of competent medical care facility.
(b) The Indian Aircraft Manual does not provide for mandatory provisions of medical services to the traveling passengers.
(c) That the AIP India clearly mentions that first aid is available at the Airports and hospitals are available in the city.
(d) The ICAO document is not specific about the provision of Doctor at the Airport by the state.
(e) Though para 4.5 of Airports Services Manual Part-7, airport emergency planning DOC 9137, provides for emergency medical services to treat the conditions such as cardiac arrest, abdominal pains, burns, cuts, abrasions and other medical problems, the Govt. of India has filed its reference through AIP.
(f) The Appendix-3 of the above document lays down guiding materials for establishing airport medical care facilities (medical clinic and first aid room) but it has been clearly recommended that airport medical clinic may be made available where the numbers of airport employees are 1000 or more. Hence maintaining airport medical care facilities is not applicable in case of Guwahati Airport. However, first aid room in the name of MI has been made available at Guwahat.
4. As is apparent the main allegation of the complainant is against the lack of medical facility in emergency condition at the Airport for which OP No.1 is responsible as it maintains all the Airports in the country. There is no allegation of any kind against OP No.2 except that the deceased was issued boarding pass by OP No.2. There is neither any allegation of deficiency in service on the part of OP No.2. The only allegation appears to be against OP No.1.
5. In a similar case decided by us we have held the Airport Authority of India guilty for deficiency in service in not properly maintaining medical services at the Airport besides other services knowing it well that at the Airport thousands of persons including young, old, sick come for catching flights. At least in case of emergency where a passenger suffers heart attack or a stroke and requires emergent treatment they are at least supposed to have the arrangement of ambulance available at the Airport at all hours to be taken to a nearby nursing home or hospital as well as doctor who is skilled in giving initial treatment to stabilize the situation for the purpose of taking him or her to a nearby nursing home.
6. However, the counsel for OP No.1-Airport Authority of India has contended that the OP No.1 functions in accordance with the provisions of International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Rules wherein as per clause 6.59 it is clearly mentioned that there should be maintained at International Airports an organized, immediately responsive staff with facilities for first aid attendance on site and appropriate arrangements should be available for expeditious referral of the occasional more serious case to pre-arranged competent medical attention.
7. He further contended that it is only recommendatory practice and not a statutory or obligatory function or mandatory practice. In other words the learned counsel for OP No.1 wants to suggest that since these are recommendatory practice it is not mandatory or necessary for the Airport Authority to maintain such a practice though the OP No.1 is still maintaining such a practice.
8. So much so OP No.1 Authority also conducted an enquiry into the allegations of the complainant and found that the passenger suffered a heart attack at 17.05 hours at the second stage of pre-embarkation whereas he was taken to the nursing home which was about 2.5 kms away at 17.14 hrs. The enquiry committee also recorded statements of the concerned officials.
9. In support of the contention that the OP No.1 has no obligation to provide any medical aid the learned counsel has referred to a decision of the Tripura State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, Agartala in appeal case No. F.A. 4 of 2001 Smt. Hena Bhattacharjee & others vs. Indian Airlines & Others wherein Justice P.K. Sarkar opined that there is nothing to show that the India Airlines or the Airport Authority of India is under any obligation to provide any medical aid to any passenger.
10. It pains us and pains us immensely that a statutory public authority like the Airport Authority of India has taken such a plea that recommendatory practice is not a mandatory practice. If it is so they should take off every doctor, every wherewithal provided by them at the Airport, even the first aid, as it is not their obligation to provide such service. In our view such an Authority by taking such a plea should be visited with punitive damages as any recommendatory practice which is for the benefit of the consumers or the public at large has to be given mandatory status and deemed as obligatory. We fail to understand as to why the OP-Airport Authority of India even gave what it claims to have given to the deceased, if it was not obligatory or mandatory upon them.
11. Consumer Protection Act was brought on the Statute by the Parliament of India pursuant to a resolution passed by the United Nations General Assembly on 9th April, 1985 for better protection of the interest of the consumers from the exploitation by the unscrupulous traders, service providers particularly in the developing countries. By passing these resolutions the legislation encompasses in its fold service of any description which is made available to potential users.
While extending the description service of any description in section 2(1)(o) the Supreme court in Lucknow Development Authority Vs. M.K. Gupta (1994) 1 Supreme court Cases 243, has gone to the extent that all those services be that of any kind made available to potential users by any service provider, be it is statutory authority or public authority or a Government have to be brought within the net of Consumer Protection Act. The relevant observations of the Supreme Court in this regard are as under:-
The entire purpose of widening the definition of service in Section 2 (o) is to include in it not only day to day buying of goods by a common man but even to such activities which are otherwise not commercial but professional or service oriented in nature. The provisions in the Acts, namely, Lucknow Development Act, Delhi Development Act or Bangalore Development Act clearly provide for preparing plan, development of land, and framing of scheme etc. Therefore if such authority undertakes to construct building or allot houses or building sites to citizens of the State either as amenity or as benefit then it amounts to rendering of service and will be covered in the expression service made available to potential users. A person who applies for allotment of a building site or for a flat constructed by the development authority or enters into an agreement with a builder or a contractor is a potential user and nature of transaction is covered in expression service of any description.
It further indicates that the definition is not exhaustive. The inclusive clause succeeded in widening its scope but not exhausting the services which could be covered in earlier part. So any service except when it is free of charge or under a constraint of personal service is included in it. Since housing activity is a service it is covered in the clause as it stood before 1993.
Further the Commission or the Forum in the Act is thus entitled to award not only value of the goods or services but also to compensate a consumer for injustice suffered by him.
12. The Supreme Court has come down very heavily on the public authorities and the officers manning those authorities as to the dereliction of their duty, the remissness in their functioning, misfeasance by which they treat the consumers has directed that the Consumer Forum or the Commissions created under the Consumer Protection Act are empowered to impose very heavy damages on such authorities and also recover the damages from the salaries of the public officers because these public authorities have degenerated into work-houses of inaction, inefficiency by virtue of being monolithic and non-accountable.
Statutory or public authority does not exist in vacuum. It is compendium of public officers who make Government, who make public authority, who create public authority. Relevant observations are as under:-
It is therefore, necessary that the Commission when it is satisfied that a complaint is entitled to compensation for harassment or mental agony or oppression, which finding of course should be recorded carefully on material and convincing circumstances and not lightly, then it should further direct the department concerned to pay the amount to the complainant from the public fund immediately but to recover the same from those who are found responsible for such unpardonable behaviour by dividing it proportionately where there are more than one functionaries.
13. Thus it is disgusting that authority like the OP No.1 being so rich and having such large resources that it spends crores and crores of rupees for upkeeping and maintenance of the Airports but for the safety of the life or to meet the emergency situation of passengers shirks its obligation and has the audacity and impunity to say that it is none of their duty to provide medical aid much less medical aid to the consumer who suffers heart attack or any other such stroke which requires immediate and emergent attention as if for them there is no value for human life and life of those on whose money they survive and thrive.
14. Quality and standard of service provided by any service provider like the Airport Authority of India has to be tested on the anvil of definition of word deficiency provided by section 2(1)(g) of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 which means any fault, imperfection, shortcoming or inadequacy in the quality, nature and manner of performance which is required to be maintained by or under any law for the time being in force or has been undertaken to be performed by a person in pursuance of a contract or otherwise in relation to any service.
15. Instances are not rare where the Supreme Court has made mandatory practice and provisions as directory provisions and directory or recommendatory provisions as mandatory provisions and in given situation there are thousands of persons who go to the airports of the country and if the conditions are not hygienic, not congenial it is the consumer who suffers due to administrative deficiencies of the service provider inspite of having incurred huge expenses towards the air travel.
16. We fail to understand that the OP No. 1has taken the refuge under the International Civil Aviation Organisation Rules, but shut their eyes when they visit Airport of other countries at the cost of public exchequer and return after having enjoyable sojourn without having learnt any lesson as to the standard and quality of services maintained by these countries. At least they should see these facilities in Asian Countries.
The interests of the consumers are paramount and cannot be sacrificed at the altar of such lame excuses, shirking of responsibilities under guise of nitty gritty of what is mandatory, what is obligatory and what is recommendatory practice. Such an approach of OP No.1 is most illogical, irrational and pedantic approach.
17. In our view such facilities have to be given and provided at every such places which are thronged by thousands of persons like the Railways Stations etc. and in the past given such directions to the Railway Minister of this Country to provide best infrastructure in the Railway Stations and create hygienic conditions.
18. In our view primary medical aid can be attended to by any person, may be a compounder or even a security staff but not such kinds of eventualities like the one in hand.
19. In the given facts and circumstances of the case, we find that there was grossest kind of deficiency in not giving immediate ambulance help as there was no ambulance available at the airport in the form of primary medical aid, we deem that a lumpsum compensation of Rs. 50,000/- payable by the Airport Authority of India , which shall include the cost of litigation , shall meet the ends of justice.
20. As regards OP No.2 there is no allegation of deficiency in service of the kind that resulted in the death of the complainant and no evidence proved or shown against it and as such complaint against OP No.2 is dismissed.
21. Aforesaid payment shall be made within one month from the date of receipt of this order.
22. Complaint is allowed and disposed of in aforesaid terms.
23. A copy of this order as per the statutory requirements, be forwarded to the parties free of charge and thereafter the file be consigned to Record Room.
24. Announced on the 6th November , 2007.
(Justice J.D. Kapoor) President (Rumnita Mittal) Member jj