RWA's should take care: 2026 INSC 756 1 ::CIVIL APPEAL NO. 4081 OF 2014 M/S OTIS ELEVATOR CO. (INDIA) LTD. ...VERSUS RASHMI HANDA & ORS. …RESPONDENT(S) WITH CIVIL APPEAL NO. 1602 OF 2020 decided on July 29,2026
Given the ever-increasing usage of passenger elevators in the modern-day urbanising societies, recognising them as a mode of vertical transportation is imperative. In this transportation, passengers have no control over the conveyance and they have to entirely rely on automation or the operator as the case may be. It is not merely reasonable, but a legal necessity to impose a heightened duty to care, akin to that of common carriers in view of the intrinsic passenger vulnerability. An elevator must be construed and deemed to be a common carrier and the operator, in the wider sense must undertake greater responsibility to transport passengers from floor to floor and exit safely. . A contract of carriage is fundamentally between the carrier and the passenger. The carrier, in the context of user of an elevator at public places will take within its sweep the manufacturer, the operator and owner of the premises provisioning its services for the users. Therefore, from the perspective of a public law identifying and provisioning effective and efficacious restitutionary remedies, it is appropriate to hold the manufacturer, the operator and owner of the premises as the duty bearers and shall jointly and severally be liable to safeguard the user. The principle arising out of composite negligence is well articulated in many decisions of this Court entitling a plaintiff/claimant to sue joint tortfeasors and recover damages. The burden of identifying the inter se liabilities of joint tortfeasors should not rest on the shoulders of the consumers seeking compensation for injury caused due to transportation through an elevator.