Notice to national carrier Air India for sacking overweight air hostess

NEW DELHI: An air hostess, working with Air India and sacked for being overweight, has moved the Delhi High Court seeking her reinstatement, pleading that she breached the weight limit due to medical reasons.

On Salome Singsit's plea, Justice S K Mishra sought the stand of National Aviation Corporation of India Ltd, the parent company of her employer firm Airlines Allied Services Ltd ( AASL) which is a subsidiary of Air India.

Issuing a notice to NACIL, the single-judge bench asked it to explain by September 19 why the air hostess' contractual employment was not renewed last December when it expired.

Moving the court on behalf of Singsit, her counsel Ashwarya Sinha pleaded for its direction for quashing AASL's notice which was issued to his client on December 27, 2010, seeking her explanation as to why she should not be sacked for breaching the weight limit.

Singsit also pleaded to the court to direct her employer to renew her contractual employment which expired on December 31, 2010.

Sinha said Singsit had joined the service on contract basis in 1996 with the provision of its renewal every three years.

While serving the airlines, his client faced various forms of extreme medical complications in the last four years, said Sinha adding the management too had been aware of her medical condition all along.

"The petitioner had suffered three abortions, a breast surgery and a uterus surgery in the last four years and was strictly advised not to undertake any physical activity," said Sinha in the petition, adding that due to strong medication prescribed by the doctors she was not able to maintain the weight within the permissible limit.

"It was a result of the constant medication and hormonal imbalance that led to the increase in her weight," the lawyer said.