HOLDING THAT “calculated risk of boarding overcrowded local train will not amount to criminal act” under the Railways Act, the Bombay High Court recently directed Western Railway (WR) to compensate an 80-year-old man with Rs 1.5 lakh for the loss he faced after a fall from train in 2011 along with Rs 1.61 lakh towards his actual medical expenses.
“Here is a person who is undertaking travel everyday for attending his work and merely because no ticket is found in his pocket, will not amount to him being classified as ‘not a bona fide passenger’,” a single-judge bench of Justice Bharati H Dangre held.
The verdict came earlier this month in the first appeal by Nitin Hundiwala who suffered injuries to his leg and head after falling off an overcrowded train in November 2011.
As per the plea argued through advocate Chaitrali Deshmukh, Hundiwala was 70 on the day of the accident. He left his Vikroli office and boarded a train to Dadar (Central railway station). At Dadar station, he came to its Western Railway section and boarded an overcrowded second class general compartment of Virar-bound local train leaving at 5.26 pm to reach Dahisar where he lived.
However, pushed by the crowd while boarding, his right leg slipped into the gap between the train and the platform and he sustained injuries to his head and right thigh.
Through its July 17, 2013 judgment, the Railway Claims Tribunal, Mumbai Bench, rejected his claims for Rs 4 lakh compensation on account of injuries sustained by him in an “untoward incident”.
The Tribunal rejected his claim by accepting WR’s submission that the case did not fall under the provisions of section 124(A) of the Railways Act which stipulates that compensation be paid in cases of “untoward incident”.
Quashing and setting aside the Tribunal’s verdict, the High Court held, “…The Tribunal has, therefore, erred in making the case of the applicant fall within the scope of ‘criminal act’.”
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