High Court dismissed an appeal against Railway Claims Tribunal's order rejecting compensation for death of a passenger. Court upheld rejection due to inconsistencies in final identification report and failure to prove ticket purchase, refusing to interfere with lower court's findings.
Appeal dismissed; lower court records transmitted to Railway Claims Tribunal.
This page shows the compact analysis of this judgement. The full analysis — procedural history, issue-by-issue holdings with ratio and obiter, advocates, and paragraph-level evidence for every claim — is being added to the record in batches and will appear here when this judgement has been through it.
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT PATNA Miscellaneous Appeal No.620 of 2012
====================================================== Rusum Tara, W/O Late Md. Sekh Bhola, R/O Village - Gauripur Seikh, P.S. Bulther, District - West Champaran ( Bihar ).
.... Applicant .... Appellant/s Versus The Union of India, through the General Manager, N. E. Railway, Gorakhpur. .... .... Respondent/s ====================================================== Appearance : For the Appellant/s : Mr. Amar Nath Mishra For the Respondent/s : Mr. Mahesh Prasad ====================================================== CORAM: HONOURABLE MR. JUSTICE JYOTI SARAN ORAL ORDER
7 25-09-2013 Heard Mr. Amar Nath Mishra, learned counsel appearing on behalf of the appellant and learned counsel appearing for the respondent-railways.
This appeal filed under section 23 of the Railway Claims Tribunal Act, 1987, is directed against the judgment and order dated 28.6.2012 passed by the Member (Technical), Railway Claims Tribunal, Patna Bench, Patna in Claim Application No.OA-000118 of 2002, whereby the claim has been rejected.
Facts of the matter as reflected from the claim application in brief is that the deceased husband of the claimant was travelling by Mithila Express from Samastipur to Raxaul on 5.11.2001 when he had met with an accidental fall in between
Siho and Dholi railway stations due to jostling amongst the
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passengers and died on the spot. An FIR was registered on the basis of the information given by the Assistant Station Master; Muzaffarpur on the same day, i.e. 5.11.2001and was registered as U.D. Case No.51 of 2001. The inquest report also mentioned death by accidental fall and was marked Exhibit A/5. The postmortem report which is Exhibit-A/6 also reports death by running train.
Whereas the FIR, inquest and postmortem reports refers to an unknown male, for the first time the name of the husband of the claimant is reflected in the final report which is dated 6.11.2001 and refers to the postmortem report which was only prepared on the day following, i.e. 7.11.2001. It is after the postmortem that the dead body was identified by the cousins of the deceased and all this is reflected in the final report (ExhibitA/7) which is dated 6.11.2001. The claimant setting up a claim for compensation filed the application in question and which has been rejected by the judgment and order impugned and hence this appeal.
I have heard learned counsel for the parties and have perused the materials on record. The claim has been rejected on two grounds, namely:
(a) doubtful nature of the final report which has been
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prepared a day earlier to the postmortem report and yet refers to the postmortem report in the identification of the dead body of the deceased; and
(b) non-recovery of the ticket.
In so far as the issue of final report is concerned, no doubt the same was prepared a day earlier, i.e. 6.11.2001 it yet refers the postmortem report which was only conducted on 7.11.2001 and it is only whereafter that the cousins of the deceased claim to have identified the dead body. This single feature by itself creates serious doubt on the final report. No evidence was led by the claimant to dispel this confusion.
In so far as the issue of ticket is concerned, although non-recovery of ticket has not been treated to be sacrosanct for rejecting the claim of any victim of an untoward incident as a bonafide passenger but in the present case it has been a specific plea of the claimant that a ticket was purchased from Samastipur railway station for Raxaul. The report of the Commercial Superintendent, Samastipur was led as Exhibit R/1 and which specifically mentions that no ticket of a mail or express train was issued from the Samastipur railway station for Samastipur to Raxaul. The report, however, mentions that one ticket bearing No.00368 via Muzaffarpur has been sold. Again the claimant has
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not led any evidence to prove that the ticket so issued, was the ticket purchased by the deceased or that the said ticket was for travelling from Samastipur to Raxaul.
In view of the abovementioned two extraordinary circumstances which also forms the ground for rejection of the claim case, I am not persuaded to interfere with the judgment and order impugned and this appeal is accordingly dismissed.
Let the lower court records be transmitted to the
Railway Claims Tribunal, Patna Bench, Patna forthwith.
(Jyoti Saran, J)
SKPathak/-
1 issue framed by the court
Whether the Railway Claims Tribunal's rejection of compensation claim regarding passenger death was discretionary within grounds of doubtful identification report and lack of ticket recovery.
1 provisions across 1 enactments
Rusum Tara
The Union of India
Jyoti Saran
As recorded by the court registry
Judgements on the same questions, provisions and authorities, from every court
