MADURAI: The Madras High Court Bench here on Wednesday gave two more weeks’ time for the General Manager of Southern Railways to take a decision on a proposal submitted by the Divisional Commercial Manager here for replacing two reserved coaches in Pandian Express, a superfast overnight express train operated between Madurai and Chennai, with unreserved coaches for the use of women and the physically challenged.
Justices S. Nagamuthu and J. Nisha Banu granted time at the request of the counsel for Southern Railways. The Bench had on November 23 directed the General Manager to consider the proposal within a week and report to the court by Wednesday since it had been made in the larger interest of the common man and because the number of coaches in the train had been reduced from 24 to 22 after the introduction of Linke Hofmann Busch (LHB) coaches.
The interim order was passed on a public interest litigation petition filed by R. Rajaselvam of Dindigul against reduction of the number of coaches in Pandian Express since August when the LHB coaches, designed on German technology, were introduced for the express train. The petitioner sought for a direction to Southern Railways to add two more unreserved coaches for the exclusive use of women and the physically challenged.
