GURUVACHAN SINGH Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The appellant, being the claimant before the Railway Claims Tribunal, Principal Bench, Delhi (hereinafter "the Tribunal"), is aggrieved by the dismissal of his claim application vide the impugned judgment dtd. 29/3/2022 passed in Case No. OA(IIu)/DLI(LKO)/275/ 2021.

(2.) The claim application came to be filed in the context of an incident wherein one Sh. Shahvanshee (since deceased), aged 82 years, undertook a train journey on 10/6/2015 from Etawah to Shikohabad on Kanpur-Tundla Passenger Train. It was claimed that while travelling in the said train, the deceased fell from the train near Jaswantnagar Railway Station and suffered fatal injuries. The Tribunal reached the conclusion that the deceased was neither a bona fide passenger nor had he died in an "untoward incident" as defined under Sec. 123(c) of the Railways Act, 1989 (hereinafter "the Act").

(3.) Assailing the aforesaid findings, learned counsel for the appellant, while referring to the decision in Union of India Vs. Rina Devi (2019) 3 SCC 572, contended that though no train ticket was recovered, the claim application was accompanied by an affidavit of the son of the deceased, wherein the material facts had been duly stated. Further, the incident had occurred between Jaswantnagar Railway Station and Balrai Railway Station, and the first information about the incident was duly recorded in the Memo issued by the Station Master, Balrai Railway Station, to the effect that the body of a person had been discovered by the Railway Keyman on 10/6/2015 at KM 1179/20-1179/22. The postmortem of the deceased was also conducted on the very same day. It is thus submitted that the deceased was a bona fide passenger and the incident resulting in his death was an "untoward incident", which the learned Tribunal failed to appreciate.