The Railway Claims Tribunal, Ernakulam Bench, has directed Southern Railway to pay a compensation of ₹8 lakh to the parents of an engineering student who died after falling from a train.
The tribunal passed the order while allowing an application filed by Saju Mathew and his wife from Elanji near here. According to them, their son, Albin Saju, studying in an engineering college in Erode, fell from the train and died while travelling from Tiruppur to Coimbatore.
Southern Railway contended that its inquiry had revealed that he died not due to any fall from the train. Besides, no ticket was recovered from the body of the victim. As such, he could not be treated as a bona fide passenger. So, Southern Railway was not liable to pay any compensation.
The tribunal said that non-recovery of the ticket from the body or the spot of the incident could not be the reason to term the victim a ticketless passenger. As the victim was travelling with friends and neighbours, an inference could be made that the victim would have bought the ticket before boarding the train.
The tribunal said that it was unfair to ask the applicants to produce the ticket when they did not know where the deceased used to keep tickets. It was to be presumed that the deceased was a bona fide passenger.
The court said that he died due to injuries sustained in the accidental fall from the train and such an incident would come within the definition of untoward incident. Besides, the Railway was unable to substantiate its plea that the student might have committed suicide. It had no case that the victim intended to inflict injuries on himself or he had done some criminal act or that he was in a state of intoxication. Therefore, it could be presumed that it was a case of accidental fall from the train.
The tribunal ordered Southern Railway to pay the compensation with 6 per cent interest within 60 days.
