Enforcement of Disability Rights in Indian Aviation Law – Law School Policy Review

Arnav Sinha and Siddhi Bhosale

Abstract: This piece argues that the inapplicability of the bar on admissibility of confessions under Section 25 of the Indian Evidence Act to Forest Officers under the Wildlife Protection Act is grounded in an artificial distinction that undermines the very purpose of the provision.

I. INTRODUCTION

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In April 2025, the Bombay High Court, facing recurring complaints regarding the unavailability of wheelchairs at Mumbai Airport, went beyond just awarding compensation to the petitioners and constituted an expert committee, to undertake a systemic review of airport accessibility. That a High Court, faced with an individual grievance, felt compelled to reach beyond adjudication is itself a quiet admission of the argument this article tries to make at length.

India’s discussion on disability rights has long been shaped by a paradox, i.e., progressive legislative frameworks coexisting with systemic exclusion, administrative inaction and implementation mess. Earlier laws, grounded in a medical model that viewed disability as an impairment to be ‘fixed’, recognised only a narrow set of conditions and failed to centre empowerment or systemic accommodation. India’s ratification of the UNCRPD catalysed a rights-based reassessment, resulting in the RPwD Act, 2016, which broadened the definition of disability and imposed positive duties of reasonable accommodation and barrier-free access. Sections 40 and 41, together with Section 3’s prohibition of discrimination, shift the framework from charity to enforceable rights. Yet the Bharatiya Vayuyan Adhiniyam, 2024, India’s most recent attempt to modernise aviation law, conspicuously omits substantive treatment of disability rights, exacerbating the enforcement problems this article examines.

Recurring incidents of denied boarding, mishandled assistive devices, and untrained personnel demonstrate a persistent gap between statutory promise and operational reality. The experience      of Jeeja Ghosh underlines that every act which leads to exclusion is not only a violation of the statutory provisions of the RPwD Act, 2016, but also of the inherent constitutional rights bestowed upon every citizen. Much of the existing engagement with this recurrence, whether doctrinal commentary on the RPwD Act or reporting on individual incidents, treats each episode as a discrete failure to be remedied on its own facts. That approach has secured important individual redress, but leaves largely unexamined why a regulatory architecture already equipped with the Civil Aviation Requirements, the Aviation Accessibility Guidelines, and CCPD oversight continues to produce near-identical failures nearly a decade after Jeeja Ghosh, and why a constitutional court in 2025 still found it necessary to improvise a remedy the statute itself does not provide.

This article reads the pattern of failure as evidence of a design defect in how enforcement is structured, rather than a series of unconnected operational lapses, and examines that defect against the Vidheyak’s silence and against comparable regulatory models abroad that have moved from reactive grievance redressal to preventive oversight. The persistent neglect towards the rights of persons with disabilities in Indian aviation thus undermines not merely statutory compliance but the enforcement of constitutional guarantees themselves. However, the existing scholarship does not explain why the aviation sector’s own regulatory framework, the Aviation Accessibility Guidelines, and the CCPD oversight, continues to accrue sub-optimal results nearly a decade after Jeeja Ghosh, or why a constitutional court still found it necessary found it necessary to improvise a remedy that the statute itself does not provide. This article narrows that inquiry to aviation sector specifically.

The article seeks to examine, firstly, the constitutional foundations of disability rights in India; secondly, the regulatory architecture governing aviation, the enforcement deficit, and judicial and quasi-judicial interventions; and finally, proposals to transform symbolic compliance into structural reform.

II. CONSTITUTIONAL FOUNDATIONS OF DISABILITY RIGHTS IN INDIA

The Constitution provides the foundational normative framework for disability rights. Article 14’s guarantee of equality before the law and equal protection of laws has an inclusive thrust that extends to reasonable accommodation; the Supreme Court’s observations in Ravindra Kumar Dhariwal v. Union of India affirm that Article 14 must be understood to neutralise disadvantage rather than merely guarantee formal parity. Section 3 of the RPwD Act gives statutory expression to this constitutional mandate by prohibiting discrimination on grounds of disability and thereby operationalising equality in everyday contexts. Article 15’s prohibition on discrimination further reinforces the requirement that reasonable accommodation must be provided so that persons with disabilities can stand on an equal footing; denial of accommodation thereby injures the very promise of Article 15 under the living document of India. Article 21 of Indian Constitution, guaranteeing the right to life with dignity, captures the qualitative dimensions of existence that must be secured for persons with disabilities.

It is critical to note that in the landmark case of Vikash Kumar v. Union Public Service Commission, the Supreme Court emphasised upon the application of convergence of Article 14, 19, and 21 to PwDs with the same rigour as it applies to any other citizen. Moreover, reasonable accommodation is an important tenet that acts as a facilitator of substantive equality under Article 14 of the Indian Constitution. Thereby, denial of reasonable accommodation inadvertently acts as a denial of equality, dignity, and resultantly, it is discrimination under Article 14 and Section 3 of the RPwD Act that strikes differential treatment solely on the basis of the ‘disability of a person’. As a result, the non-discrimination guaranteed under Article 15, and statutory prohibition under Section 3 of the RPwD Act, operationalise the substantive equality principle enunciated under Article 14.

The judgment in Arushi Singh v. Union of India underscores that sensitisation of airport staff and the protection of dignity are integral to Article 21; overlooking these obligations is not merely administrative lapse but a constitutional violation affecting life with dignity. The legislative intent behind provisions such as Section 20(3), seeking non-discrimination in employment and promotion, reinforces that the RPwD Act is designed to give practical effect to constitutional commitments. Viewed together, Articles 14, 15 and 21 generate an integrated constitutional imperative for inclusion which the RPwD Act seeks to operationalise.

III. AVIATION LAW, THE ENFORCEMENT DEFICIT, AND JUDICIAL/QUASI-JUDICIAL RESPONSES

The regulatory architecture for aviation in India contains instruments aimed at accessibility, yet enforcement remains woefully inadequate. The DGCA’s Civil Aviation Requirements (‘CAR’) set operational expectations, accessible booking and boarding processes, trained personnel, prohibition of discriminatory treatment and handling of assistive devices, but CARs are subordinate instruments lacking the full statutory force necessary to compel sector-wide compliance. The Bharatiya Vayuyan Vidheyak, 2024, enacted with the objective of modernising aviation law and aligning India with international covenants such as those under International Civil Aviation Organisation (‘ICAO’), regrettably omits any substantive treatment of disability rights. This omission is consequential: whereas other jurisdictions have embedded accessibility into primary aviation legislation, India has relied on a piecemeal approach that leaves obligations vulnerable to lax enforcement and administrative circumvention.

The human consequences of this enforcement deficit are stark and recurring. In March 2025, an 82-year-old woman collapsed at Delhi International Airport after a requested wheelchair was not provided, forcing her to traverse the terminal unaided and sustaining injury. In February 2024, Air India was fined ₹30 lakh following the death of an 80-year-old passenger which was attributed to the lack of wheelchair support. In 2022, IndiGo barred a child with disabilities from boarding on vague “safety” grounds without an official medical opinion; the airline was subsequently fined ₹5 lakh. Such incidents reveal that regulatory directives have not been internalised as operational norms. Cases like Jeeja Ghosh v. Union of India, where a passenger was deboarded and humiliated, and Sakshi Komal Dubey v. Directorate General of Civil Aviation & Ors. (in which the CCPD took suo motu cognisance of a wheelchair-bound passenger left unattended despite prior notification), lay bare the recurrent operational failures of airlines and airport staff. These episodes demonstrate that exclusionary acts are not isolated lapses but symptomatic of an institutional culture that treats accessibility as discretionary rather than obligatory.

Judicial and quasi-judicial fora have repeatedly been called upon to rectify these failures. The judiciary has read constitutional principles into administrative duties, stressing that accessibility, dignity and non-discrimination are fundamental obligations. The Chief Commissioner of Persons with Disabilities (CCPD’s) interventions, including directions to make airline websites accessible and clarifications that the RPwD Act binds all airlines including foreign carriers operating in India, exemplify remedial activism by adjudicatory bodies filling regulatory voids. Yet reliance on courts and quasi-judicial remedies has inherent limits. Adjudicatory remedies operate ex post, i.e., they respond to violations that have already occurred, and harms that have already been suffered. The person with a disability who is let’s say, denied boarding, left unattended, or deprived of a wheelchair, must first endure the exclusion, then navigate a complaint mechanism, and then await the outcome of the adjudication process that may on an average stretch across months or years. Thus, the remedy, even when granted, cannot undo the exclusion, it can merely compensate for it.           

This reactive architecture also creates a predictable incentive structure for airlines and airports. Where non-compliance triggers consequences only upon the complaint, or where the volume of complaints reaching adjudicatory forums remains low relative to actual violations, institutions may rationally prefer absorbing the occasional penalty over investing in structural accessibility reforms. What makes this failure distinctive to aviation, however, is not the reactive vs. proactive distinction itself, but the fact that the same regulator already operates a preventive model elsewhere in its own mandate. The regulations underline that the DGCA already possesses this preventive capacity. Air safety certification and its periodic renewal do not wait for an accident before scrutiny begins; audits are scheduled, recurring and independent of any individual complaint. Accessibility compliance has received no equivalent treatment. The DGCA, having fined ₹5 lakh on IndiGo in 2022 and ₹30 lakh on Air India in 2024, thereby is not a regulator that lacks the institutional means to monitor compliance proactively, it exercises those means routinely. This distinction between reactive adjudication and proactive regulation is the central enforcement deficit discussed in this article, and it is the foundation upon which the recommendations in Part IV are constructed.    

IV. WAY FORWARD: FROM SYMBOLIC COMPLIANCE TO STRUCTURAL TRANSFORMATION

The first step forward lies in legislative recognition. The Bharatiya Vayuyan Vidheyak, 2024, enacted with the objective of aligning India’s aviation sector with global standards and buttressing the weak areas of the existing framework, regrettably omits any mention of disability rights. This silence is clear and apparent, especially when looked at in contrast with binding international commitments under the UNCRPD and India’s obligations as a founding member of the ICAO. By failing to incorporate even an enabling provision, the Act perpetuates the flawed framework of the Aircraft Act that marginalised persons with disabilities in aviation policymaking. An amendment to the Vidheyak is, therefore, imperative: it should insert a chapter dedicated to accessibility, reasonable accommodation, and non-discrimination.

Second, the regulatory framework must be institutionalised through clear and strict accountability mechanisms. The Civil Aviation Requirements, though comprehensive in content, remain subordinate instruments without the force of statute. Their elevation into enforceable rules under either the RPwD Act or the primary aviation statute is essential to ensure proper compliance and legal enforceability. Alongside this, the DGCA could establish a permanent Disability Accessibility Cell empowered to undertake pre-emptive audits, monitor airline and airport operations, handle passenger grievances in a time-bound manner, and publish annual accessibility compliance reports.

Such institutional models find a clear precedent in other signatory countries of UNCRPD that have successfully operationalised their obligations. For instance, in the United States, the Air Carriers Access Act and its implementing regulations (14 CFR Part 382) require airlines to have trained Complaint Resolution Officials at airports to resolve accessibility issues before departure. Similarly, in the United Kingdom, the Civil Aviation Authority goes beyond mere task of responding to complaints. It conducts regular accessibility audits under EU Regulation 1107/2006 and publishes annual reports ranking the airports on their accessibility performance. These measures make accessibility a matter of ongoing regulatory oversight, rather than relying solely on individual complaints.

Without such dedicated institutional mechanisms, the CCPD or the courts are compelled to take action in matters that can clearly be handled and enforced by the sectoral regulator; as a result, accessibility will continue to be treated as a discretionary standard rather than an enforceable right.

Third, any commitment to accessibility must be necessarily reflected in the human architecture of service delivery, i.e., the people providing the service. This in our opinion, can be achieved through two mutually reinforcing structural changes: sensitisation training, and internal operational protocols without which such training will remain ineffective.

As demonstrated by repeated violations, including the cases of Jeeja Ghosh and Sakshi Komal Dubey, untrained staff members are often the proximate cause of exclusion and humiliation faced by persons with disabilities. Disability sensitisation, hence, becomes indispensable and must be integrated into the mandatory training curriculum for all airline and airport personnel, with emphasis on communication with persons with sensory and intellectual impairments and on emergency-response protocols.