Providing a major relief to families of those fell from overcrowded trains and died, the Madras High Court held that Southern Railways cannot deny compensation to them even if they were unable to produce tickets or any other travel authority to establish that the deceased were bona fide passengers of the trains in question.
In a judgment reserved in the principal seat of the High Court in Chennai and delivered in the Madurai Bench, Justice T. Raja held that “the onus is on the Railways (and not on the claimants for compensation) to prove that the deceased were not bona fide passengers of trains, since the normal presumption is that a passenger in a train holds a valid ticket.”
Allowing two different civil appeals by a common order, the judge reversed orders passed by Railway Claims Tribunal in September 2008 refusing compensation to families of two passengers who died while travelling on Electric Multiple Unit trains in Chennai in 2002 and 2006. He held that the tribunal had erred in expecting the claimants to produce valid tickets.
The judge said that Section 124A of the Railways Act, 1989 provided for paying compensation for any ‘untoward incident,’ irrespective of the negligence on the part of the railways, subject to conditions that the deceased or injured purchased a valid ticket and it was not an instance of attempt to suicide, intoxication and so on. One of the two instant cases was filed by parents of a youth T. Jagan, who died after hitting an electric post during his travel by an EMU train between Chengalpet and Mambalam on April 10, 2006.
The second claim was filed by the wife and children of construction worker K. Ekambaram who died in a similar incident between Chetpet and Nungambakkam on May 28, 2002.
“In my view, the tribunal miserably failed to consider the judgments of the various High Courts holding that the benefit of doubt that the deceased could have been a bona fide passenger should be given while dealing with a beneficial piece of legislation,” the judge said, and directed Southern Railways to pay a compensation of Rs. 4 lakh with interest to the claimants in each of two appeals.
