Ticket With Friend, Not On Body: P&H HC Awards ₹8 Lakh To Family After Passenger’s Fatal Train Fall

The appellants claimed compensation under Section 124-A of the Railways Act, 1989, alleging that Deepak Kumar died after accidentally falling from a train while travelling from Rishikesh to Ambala Cantt. on 3 July 2019.

The ticket for three passengers was produced before the GRP the following day; the appellants’ case was that Deepak had purchased it and handed it to a companion, while a fourth companion travelled without a ticket.

The Railway Claims Tribunal dismissed the claim, finding that bona fide passenger status and an untoward incident had not been established.

The Tribunal’s judgment was appealed under Section 23 of the Railway Claims Tribunal Act, 1987.

Section 123(c)(2) of the Railways Act, 1989 includes the accidental falling of a passenger from a train within “untoward incident”; Section 124-A provides no-fault compensation for death or injury caused by such an incident, subject to its statutory exceptions.

Applying Union of India v. Prabhakaran Vijaya Kumar, (2008) 9 SCC 527, and Jameela v. Union of India, (2010) 12 SCC 443, the Court treated the provision as beneficial and requiring an interpretation that advances its purpose.

Under Union of India v. Rina Devi, (2019) 3 SCC 572, non-recovery of a ticket from the deceased is not, by itself, sufficient to disprove bona fide passenger status; claimants must establish their case on a preponderance of probabilities, after which the burden shifts to the Railway Administration to rebut it.

The absence of an eyewitness is not fatal to such a claim.

The Court also relied on Union of India v. Radha Yadav, (2019) 3 SCC 410.

Under Rina Devi, interest may be awarded from the date the Railway’s liability arises until payment.

The Court held that the contemporaneous GRP record documented production of the ticket on 4 July 2019, while the co-passengers’ statements and testimony supported the account that Deepak bought the ticket and handed it to a companion.

The ticket’s coverage of three persons did not establish that Deepak was the unticketed traveller, and the Railway produced no evidence to rebut the appellants’ account; the Tribunal’s contrary inference was therefore unsustainable.

On the incident, the medical evidence did not exclude a fall from a moving train, and the police record identified the death as a railway accident.

The Railway did not identify a train that had run over Deepak or produce cogent evidence that he had been run over rather than fallen.

The guard’s reported lack of knowledge, the absence of an eyewitness, the body’s location, and the Tribunal’s assumptions about when railway staff would have noticed it did not disprove the claim.

On the evidence as a whole, the appellants established bona fide passenger status and accidental falling on a preponderance of probabilities; no statutory exception was established.

The claim was allowed for compensation of Rs. 8,00,000, with interest at 9% per annum from the date the claim application was filed until realisation.

The Railway was directed to deposit/pay the amount within two months of receiving a certified copy; the judgment further provides for interest at 12% per annum from the expiry of three months until realisation if the amount is not deposited within the stated period.

The compensation was to be disbursed among the eligible dependants in the ratio of 50:30:10:10, subject to the directions concerning entitlement and succession.