Marriage Officer Suspended for Forcing a Disabled Woman to be Carried up Two Floors
Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Oct 26: An official in the government marriage registrar’s office in Mumbai was suspended for forcing a disabled woman getting married to be carried up two floors for completing the marriage formalities.
The disabled woman Virali Modi was forced to go up to the second-floor office of a marriage registrar at Khar in Mumbai on her wedding day to complete the formalities. The building did not have lift facilities. The Maharashtra revenue department issued a government resolution (GR) on Wednesday suspending the officer – Arun Ghodekar.
Virali Modi, who uses a wheelchair and identifies herself as a disability rights activist, in a post on X last week claimed she had to be carried to the second-floor office of the marriage registrar in the city on her wedding day because the building had no lift and the officials refused to come down to complete the formalities.
“How is this fair? What happened to the Accessible India campaign? Just because I’m a wheelchair user, do I not have the right to get married to someone I love? What if someone had slipped and what if I had fallen on my wedding day? Who is responsible?” she asked.
The post, which was shared many times, had also elicited a response from Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis who said he was sorry for what she had to face and assured to take “corrective and appropriate action.”
The state revenue department in the GR said Ghodekar, as a government officer, insisted that the disabled person come to the second floor on the ground of collecting her and the groom’s fingerprints and photos on the computer. “There are provisions in the Special Marriage Act 1954 where the marriage officer needs to go to the wedding location at a reasonable distance from the marriage registration office. The government officers have to respond and provide service to the weaker sections,” the GR said.
“People close to Virali Modi and her fiancée, Kshitij Nayak, telephoned Ghodekar, requesting him to come downstairs to complete the marriage registration procedure. But Ghodekar insisted that they come to the second floor of the building, which had no lift. For violating the service rules and indecent behaviour, Arun Ghodekar will remain suspended till further order,” it added.
Virali Modi in her post last week said, “I am disabled and I got married at the Registrar’s Office at Khar Mumbai on 16/10/23. The office was on the 2nd floor WITHOUT a lift. They wouldn’t come downstairs for the signatures and I had to be carried up two flights of stairs to get married.”
“I am disheartened that my country’s government and citizens cannot accommodate to my disability. My faith in humanity has been destroyed by this ordeal. I am not a piece of luggage that needs to be carried up two floors. I am a human being and my rights matter!” she added on an anguished note.
The same Virali Modi in November, 2018, had complained about ill-treatment at the Mumbai airport when she was going to catch a flight to London. She had then alleged that she suffered “major cramps” after she was forcefully lifted from her wheelchair by a CISF personnel at the Mumbai airport, a charge denied by the paramilitary force, saying the checks were carried out on her in accordance with the procedure.
In a twit then she had said, “I’m travelling to London from Mumbai via @jetairways and I had the most horrible experience with the CISF staff. After scanning my wheelchair, this insensitive woman was forcing me to stand up, even when I told her repeatedly that I couldn’t.” “She kept forcing me to stand up and then she went on to say that she’d lift me up and get someone else to pat my backside. After many denied requests, she lifted my leg up forcefully, causing a major cramp,” she wrote on her Twitter handle.
The Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) reacted on its official handle saying the woman staffer “was carrying out mandatory pre-embarkation security check and she was polite too during the interaction.” “On seeing the lady concerned, CISF officers arrived at the spot, pacified her and explained the situation,” CISF added.
Ms Modi, in a series of tweets, described her agony, saying, “The cramp was so painful that my leg went into a spasm which made it cramp even more. I wanted to file a complaint about the way she treated me, but her senior was nowhere in sight. Is this how the CISF are trained?” She alleged that the CISF personnel was incredibly insensitive and the way she was treated was “NOT how you treat a disabled passenger!”
“Every other international airport has chemical strips to check the wheelchair and shoes, a disabled passenger doesn’t need to get out of her wheelchair. So why in Mumbai’s International Airport?” On its part, the CISF said the “check was carried out as per procedure and any inconvenience meted out was unintentional. Security is of prime importance, at the same time, CISF takes care of specially-abled/needy passengers in a dignified manner”.
CISF officials said Ms Modi was asked to move to a nearby frisking area at the airport as her wheelchair was large and could not be scanned in the x-ray machine, but they denied any forceful or rude conduct by the security personnel who cleared the passenger to board the flight. CISF officials had also said the personnel deployed at the airports were trained to render specialised assistance to specially-abled passengers who were either wheelchair-bound or had implants in the body.
