New Delhi, July 17 (IANS) The Supreme Court on Friday ruled that the absence of a train ticket on the body of a deceased passenger cannot, by itself, be a ground to deny compensation under the Railways Act, holding that welfare legislation must receive a liberal interpretation to ensure justice for victims of railway accidents.
A Bench of Justices Sanjay Karol and NK Singh allowed the appeal of a woman whose compensation claim had been rejected by the Railway Claims Tribunal and the Madhya Pradesh High Court after her husband died in an accidental fall from a moving train in 2015, allegedly losing his ticket along with his missing travel bag.
Setting aside the concurrent findings of the Tribunal and the High Court, the apex court directed the Railways to pay compensation of Rs 8 lakh to the appellant within four weeks, failing which the amount would carry interest at the rate of 8 per cent from the date of filing of the claim petition.
In its detailed judgment, the Justice Karol-led Bench said that the liability under Section 124A of the Railways Act is based on the principle of “no-fault liability” and the provision, being a beneficial legislation, has to be interpreted in a manner that advances its object.
“The beneficial legislations are to receive purposive and liberal construction in furtherance of the intentions of the Legislature… instead of a literal or restrictive approach being adopted,” the top court observed. It added that “technical approaches and lapses in procedure should not defeat the welfare aim of the statute” and that it does not befit the Railways, “as an instrumentality of the State, to take such restrictive, pigeonhole view.”
The case related to the death of Chandrakant Thakkar, who was travelling from Raipur to Ahmedabad in the Ahmedabad-Howrah Mail on November 28, 2015, when he accidentally fell from the moving train. His wife claimed that the journey ticket had been kept inside a travel bag, which went missing after the accident. While the Railway Claims Tribunal accepted that the incident qualified as an “untoward incident”, it denied compensation on the ground that the deceased had not been proved to be a bona fide passenger.
The Madhya Pradesh High Court affirmed the decision.
Referring to its earlier decisions, the Justice Karol-led Bench reiterated that the initial burden on the claimant can be discharged through an affidavit and that mere non-recovery of a ticket does not negate the status of a bona fide passenger. “Merely because the ticket of a train journey was not found on the person of the deceased, will not change his status as a bona fide passenger. It has been held that the initial burden of the claimant can be satisfied by way of an affidavit,” the apex court observed.
Allowing the appeal, the apex court directed the Railways to pay the compensation within four weeks.
In a significant suggestion, the Supreme Court also recommended that the Railways reconsider the terminology “second class passenger” used in its manuals. “We may suggest that the class connotation be attached to the coach and not to the passenger, in recognition of the history of class divisions in our country and the same being offensive to the spirit of the Constitution of India,” the Justice Karol-led Bench observed.
–IANS
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