Comedian Kunal Kamra sends legal notice to IndiGo, asks for Rs 25 lakh compensation
The legal notice seeks to have the suspension revoked immediately and asks the airline to tender an unconditional apology.
Comedian Kunal Kamra on Saturday sent a legal notice to private carrier IndiGo, which has banned him from travelling with it for six months for heckling journalist Arnab Goswami on its Mumbai-Lucknow flight on January 28. The legal notice seeks to have the suspension revoked immediately and asks the airline to tender an unconditional apology through all media platforms.
The domestic airline had banned Kamra on January 28, after which three other airlines – Air India, SpiceJet and GoAir – also prohibited him from flying “until further notice”. The bans came about after Union Minister of Civil Aviation Hardeep Singh Puri issued an advisory to all carriers to take action against Kamra.
The pilot of the IndiGo aircraft, Rohit Mateti, had said he was disheartened that the airline had taken action against Kamra solely on the basis of social media posts, without consulting him. “Kamra’s behaviour, while unsavoury, was not qualifying of a level one unruly passenger,” Mateti said. “Pilots can attest to incidents which were similar and/or worse in nature that were not deemed unruly.”
The IndiGo captain said Kamra had apologised to the flight crew multiple times, and “at no point did he not comply with crew instructions”.
Saturday’s legal notice also sought a compensation of Rs 25 lakh for the “mental pain and agony” suffered by Kamra as well as the losses incurred due to the cancellation of the comedian’s scheduled events in the country and overseas. It asked for action against the officials who had imposed a ban on him flying with the airline.
Here are the key excerpts from the notice.