The Delhi High Court recently summoned Vistara airlines on a plea filed by the parents of a minor girl seeking damages of nearly ₹2.7 crores for second-degree burns caused to the child after a hot beverage was allegedly spilled on her by airline staff while on board a Vistara flight from Delhi to Frankfurt.
Justice Anup Jairam Bhambhani heard the matter on January 9 and ordered the Tata owned airlines to file its response to the suit within a month.
The Court also asked Vistara to reply to the interim relief application within two weeks. The matter will be heard next on March 6.
In their suit, the girl’s parents said that she suffered “grave second-degree burns on her thighs and adjoining areas” due to the negligence of an air hostess who seemed to be in a hurry while carrying the hot-chocolate ordered by the child with another extremely hot beverage.
The incident is said to have occurred on August 11, 2023.
The parents have sought damages for the bodily injuries sustained by their daughter along with medical expenses incurred at Frankfurt in Germany and other consequential reliefs.
The parents claimed that even after they shared the incident on social media, Vistara instead of taking responsibility for the “negligent and reckless acts of its employees and extending support to the family, issued a statement on the social media platform ‘X’ (formerly known as Twitter) from its official account, confirming the incident but falsely attributing the blame for the incident upon the child."
The parents disputed Vistatara's statement that the incident took place due to "the child’s playful behaviour."
They said that the incident not only caused serious medical injuries to the child but also caused severe mental agony and harassment to the family.
“Throughout their interactions with the Gupta family after the said incident, Vistara has been unable to provide any explanation for its crew’s negligence, carelessness and professional misconduct, including their violation of DGCA norms and guidelines pertaining to the temperature at which liquids are permitted to be served on board a flight. Even after deboarding from the flight at Frankfurt, the child and her mother were simply made to sit in an ambulance and taken to a hospital directly from the runway, without any representative or officer of the airline accompanying them, or providing them any further instructions or assistance on how to proceed at the hospital,” the Court was told.
The parents further submitted that Vistara made no attempt to reach out or offer any assistance to the family after the incident.
“In fact, Vistara made no contact whatsoever with the family for more than 30 hours after the child and her mother deboarded from the flight. As a result, the child’s parents were constrained to navigate the medical system, arrange for accommodation and make all such other necessary arrangements for their child’s urgent medical treatment in a foreign country, all by themselves. The only time Vistara finally reached out to the family was after Mrs. Gupta was constrained to share details of the incident on her Twitter account, which finally drew the airline’s attention to the incident, but even thereafter, no material assistance or help was extended by the airline to the family while they were in Frankfurt.”
Advocates Samar Kachwaha, Shivangi Nanda, Kavita Vinayak, Rini Mehta, Anmol Agarwal and Prayuj Sharma appeared for the plaintiff (family/ parents of the child).
[Read Order]