B PUSHPAKANTHI Vs. GENERAL MANAGER SOUTHERN RAILWAY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioner has brought this revision feeling aggrieved against the order passed by the State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, Tamil Nadu at Chennai, accepting the appeal of the General Manager, Southern Railways, Madras - 600 003. The facts briefly stated are that the complainants are the old couple, the husband is at 77 years and the wife is at 73 years. The wife is a heart patient. They had reserved two berths for journey from Madras to Karur on 18th April, 1994, and also obtained confirmed reservation for the return journey on 24th April, 1994 from Karur to Madras Central by the Kochin Express. While the journey from Madras Central to Karur was as scheduled and uneventful, it was not so on their return journey and they were faced with problems. The first problem was that they found their names were missing from the reservation chart and on contacting the Railway officials they were informed that they had no reservation. On their producing the confirmed reservation tickets issued by the Railways for that very day by that very train, they were asked to take seats in Cabin-A but not in Cabin-B, which was the coupe originally reserved from them. After the train had got into motion the TTE on being asked to provide accommodation to the old couple failed to do so which lead to some heated exchange of words between them. The wife who was the first complainant became sick on coming to know of the non-availability of the berth and was emotionally upset. The TTE, as alleged, did not care for their predicament and left them with one berth in Cabin-A. This whole episode caused mental strain and inconvenience to the old couple, and it is further alleged that the wife (the first complainant) became emotionally upset and sick as a consequence of this. On reaching Madras the complainants gave notice to the respondents, the Railways, and in return, they only received a letter from the Additional General Manager of the Railways regretting for the incovenience caused to them, but did not deal with their claim for refund and compensation for inconvenience. Having failed to get redressal of their grievances the complainants filed a complaint before the District Forum under the Consumer Protection Act. The respondents contested the claim of the complainant and their plea before the District Forum was that there was an urgent message for provision of the coupe for a VVIP at the last minute and as such the coupe allotted to the complainants had to be cancelled and given to the VVIP. No particulars of the VVIP are mentioned nor any chart to show or even the message whereby the coupe was requisitioned was produced or brought on record by the Railways. They denied that the health condition of the complainant No. 1 was the direct cause of sudden cancellation or the change of allotment of reservation. They also stated that as the accommodation to the couple had to be cancelled the TTE incharge, in an effort to alleviate their hardship, allotted to the couple one berth. The Railways did not plead any other defence nor did they refer to any rule in their reply which could justify their action.

(2.) THE District Forum, after taking into all the documents and records including the confirmed reservation ticket returned a finding of deficiency of service and directed refund of fare and costs of Rs. 250/-, apart from Rs. 10,000/- towards compensation.