GENERAL MANAGER, N.F. RAILWAYS Vs. CHARU ENTERPRISES

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Heard Mr. D.K. Dey, learned counsel for the appellant as well as Mr. H.P. Barman, learned counsel appearing for the respondent.

(2.) By filing this appeal under Sec. 23 of the Railway Claims Tribunal Act, 1987, the appellant has challenged the judgement and order dated 05.08.2010 passed by the learned Claims Tribunal, Guwahati Bench, Guwahati in Application No. 495/07(M-21/04).

(3.) At the outset it would be relevant to record that this appeal was admitted by order dated 27.05.2009 and since then the Registry of this Court has issuing continuous reminders for requisition the records of the claim case from the learned Railway Claims Tribunal, Guwahati Bench, Guwahati. As the record had not been received, this Court by taking a stern note of the non-compliance of the orders, by the order dated 20.01.2017, directed the Additional Registrar of the Railway Claims Tribunal, Guwahati Bench, Guwahati to appear personally before this Court and to show cause for non-compliance of the orders. The said authority had appeared before this Court and by filing an affidavit submitted that the records were destroyed either by termites/insects or it was destroyed by flood water. On this ground, this Court had caused an inspection to be made by appointing an Advocate as Commissioner for carrying out local inspection to know about the condition of the Railway Claims Tribunal, Guwahati Bench, Guwahati and the Commissioner's report showed a very bad condition of the court building. Accordingly, this Court issued a notice to the General Manager, N.F. Railway on the matter and now an affidavit has been filed by the General Manager, N.F. Railway, indicating that steps are being taken for maintenance of the RCT building and as the building is more than 60 years old, they are replacing the building with new RCC framed building which was being proposed in PWP 2016-17, but the work was not approved. But the same work was again proposed in PWP 2017-18 and the amount sanctioned for new RCT building is Rs.81.00 lakh and the work is under progress with a target date of completion on 15.08.2018. This aspect is being separately dealt with. This narration has been given only for the purpose of showing that the trial court's records are not available in this case and they are destroying.