RAJ BAL AND ORS. Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This first appeal is filed under Section 23 of the Railway Claims Tribunal Act, 1987 impugning the judgment of the Tribunal dated 19.12.2011 which has dismissed the claim petition on the ground that though the death of Sh. Parveen Kumar took place on 1.3.2010 when his body was found lying on the tracks at Delhi Railway Station, however, the platform ticket is legally valid only for two hours for purchase from 7.20 pm and the accident took place at 9.55 PM i.e beyond two hours. Another ground for dismissing the claim petition is that no evidence has been led which shows that the deceased died on account of a train accident.

(2.) The facts of the case as pleaded by the appellants/applicants were that the deceased Parveen Kumar came to Delhi for his school work from Faruk Nagar alongwith his maternal uncle. On 1.3.2010, he purchased a platform ticket no. 47614900 for journey of his maternal uncle who was going to Khurja and thereafter both of them went to platform no.4 at Delhi Railway Station. It was further the case of the appellants/applicants that there was a huge and uncontrolled rush of passengers on the platform and when the New Delhi EMU train came at platform no.4 then due to thrust from passengers, the deceased Parveen Kumar got hit and fell down on the railway track resulting in grievous injuries and died at the spot.

(3.) In my opinion, the Railway Claims Tribunal has quite clearly erred in dismissing the claim petition inasmuch as both the reasons relied upon by the Tribunal are quite clearly perverse to say the least. Firstly, assuming that the deceased died at 9.55 PM and the ticket was purchased at 7.20 PM, it cannot be held that since the platform ticket was valid only for two hours, the deceased Parveen Kumar after the period of two hours of purchase of the ticket would become a trespasser. I would have understood a case where platform ticket was of one day and accident took place on the next date or thereafter and in which case there would be an issue of a person being a trespasser as the validity of platform ticket is ordinarily for two hours. The validity only for two hours presumes that all trains in this country run on time. Surely, this is not so. Therefore, noting that the object of provisions is to impose a strict liability upon the Railways, hence, Sections 123(c), 124 and 124-A of the Railways Act, 1989 have to be given a purposive construction. It may be noted that person holding a valid platform ticket is a bonafide passenger as per the Explanation to Section 124-A of the Railways Act, 1989. This Explanation reads as under:-