New Delhi: The airhostesses of Indian (Airlines) who have been grounded for being overweight got a relief on Monday when the Delhi High Court directed the national carrier to pay salary to them, pending a final verdict in the case.
The court, however, clarified that its order is only an interim relief to the aggrieved airhostesses and that the order was subject to the outcome of its final judgement.
The order was passed by a Bench comprising Chief Justice MK Sharma and Justice Sanjeev Khanna on an appeal by the state-owned airlines against the order of a single-bench judge, which had earlier asked it to pay the salaries to the cabin crew, who have been grounded from flight duty.
The airhostesses, who have been grounded without pay, challenged Indian's circular of May 4, 2006 withdrawing the permissible overweight limit of 3 kg over and above the upper limit as laid down for cabin crew.
The counsel for the airhostesses, Arvind Sharma, contended in the court that the circular arbitrarily, unilaterally and illegally did away with the 3 kg of grace weight and grounded them without pay without any application of mind.
The petitioners (airhostesses), who have to undergo medical checkup as prescribed under the Indian Airlines Services Employees' Service Regulations, have got all the medical clearance certificates and not a single of them were medically unfit to fly, he said.
It was submitted that airhostesses and cabin crew cannot be grounded on the ground of over and under weight/height once they have obtained medical certificate.
The requisite qualification required under the rules is that airhostesses were to be medically fit and nowhere is it mentioned that being overweight would attract grounding without pay, the counsel contended.
Comments
0 comment