In an important judgment, the Supreme Court of India has ratified the order of the National Consumer Commission that had awarded an overall sum of Rs. 38.04 lakhs (including interest) compensation against the Airports Authority of India for dereliction leading to the death of a child. In a horrific incident on December 13, 1999, a family arriving at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport saw their 7 year old daughter getting sucked into the gap at the end of the escalator and getting crushed to death. It was an incident that sparked a lot of outrage, more so, because this was an incident that could have been avoided.

The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld an order of the national consumer commission awarding Rs 38.04 lakh compensation to the mother of a seven-year-old girl who died after she was sucked into an escalator at Delhi’s international airport in December 1999. The order marked a stinging rebuke to the Airports Authority of India which, despite strong evidence pointing to its callousness in not maintaining the escalator, had sought to dispute the compensation granted to Geeta Jethani.
While awarding the compensation, the commission had criticized the cussed attitude of AAI in questioning the compensation for a death which clearly resulted from its apathy, saying the case pointed to the extent “we have developed the tendency to deny the obvious, in litigation”. “Except admitting the trapping of a young child in the escalator, the AAI has tried to dispute its liability and deficiency in service. We do not know when we will change our jurisprudence which encourages such attitude of denials and protracts litigation and increases burden on adjudicating forums/courts,” Justice M B Shah, chairman of the commission, had said in his verdict.

The whole incident was extremely shocking when it happened. From my memory, investigation seemed to show that the escalator was not being maintained properly, and in addition, there was no immediate button to stop the escalator. It seems a default now that every escalator has a Red stop button that will immediately stop the escalator, but such was not the case at that point of time. It was only after that incident was there increased focus on making sure that the escalator can stop in an emergency.
The other major problem that becomes evident from this case is that nature of Government enterprises. There is an incredible amount of lethargy, work-saving, and passing the buck that happens. This very rarely gets pointed out since these are after all Government enterprises, but one hopes that more judgments like these will ensure that even Government run enterprises are responsible for ensuring safety at their premises and for ensuring that customer service is their motto. This is hopeful thinking, but one rarely knows whether such an attitude change could happen.

In India, overcrowded means of transport are the norm. You look at buses / trucks / jeeps / taxis, all of them seem to be over-crowded and full of passengers. In the case of an accident, the insurance company is inundated with cases filed by the passengers. So now there is a clarification about the limits to how much the insurance claims can be filed:

Insurance companies cannot be compelled to pay compensation to all passengers in road accidents involving overloaded vehicles of public transport as the liability is restricted only to authorised number of passengers, the Supreme Court has ruled. In other words, if a 42-seater bus overloaded with 90 passengers meets with an accident, the insurance company is liable to pay compensation only to the extent of the authorised 42 passengers.
The apex court passed the ruling while setting aside the orders passed by the Himachal Pradesh High Court and the Motor Vehicle Accidents Tribunal which had directed the National Insurance Company to compensate all the 90 passengers of a 42-seater bus involved in an accident.

This is an interesting judgment, and could affect people who get impacted by accidents. Typically, in most urban and rural areas, public transport is over-loaded. In the case of accidents, people would no longer have the safety of at least having insurance. However, this is correct from the perspective of an insurance company since the insurance on the vehicle and costing is as per the carrying capacity of the vehicle.

Shocking, isn’t it. Kids go to a fair to enjoy and have a good time, and due to non-regular maintenance, the ride simply collapses on the kids. Not only did this cause injuries to the kids and some adults, it would have shocking; at least for a couple of the kids, it will make it much more difficult for them to go to another fair and have the same amount of excitement for a Ferris Wheel again. The biggest issue is that there does not seem to be any kind of checks and balances for a fair like this, once the fair holders have permission to hold a fair, there is no check whatsoever about whether the machines are okay, have proper maintenance, and so on:

They were there for sheer fun, but a ride on the Ferris wheel turned out to be a traumatic experience for about 12 children and at least three adults, who suffered minor injuries when most of the wheel simply collapsed while in motion.
Although the organisers had the requisite permission to conduct the fair, they had not taken adequate precautions which led to the accident. Sources said the arms of the wheel came loose while in motion. “This could have happened as the nuts keeping the arms attached to the main body came loose,” an eye-witness remarked.

In can be argued that this was simply an accident, but that is not a correct argument. It is only when we are in a relaxed environment, unworried about things such as inspections of facilities, that people can take short-cuts, and either get shoddy maintenance done or no maintenance at all. There is no worry that they can be fined or otherwise held responsible for their doings. Another example is when you go to a ill-maintained building, then there is a fear that lifts in the building have not had proper maintenance, and we have all learned to live with such fears rather than trying to do something about it.