Body Found In Pieces Doesn't Establish Self-Inflicted Injury Or Other Exceptions To Deny Railway Compensation: Allahabad High Court
The Allahabad High Court has held that the recovery of a passenger's body in several pieces cannot by itself lead to the conclusion that the death fell within the exceptions to Section 124-A of the Railways Act, 1989. It held that the Railways must establish those exceptions by leading cogent and substantial evidence.
Section 123(c)(2) of the Act defines 'untoward incident' to include the accidental falling of any passenger from a train carrying passengers. Section 124-A makes the railway administration liable to compensate for such a death whether or not it was at fault, subject only to the exceptions in the proviso.
The proviso excludes compensation if the passenger dies or suffers injury due to suicide, self-inflicted injury, his own criminal act, etc.
Justice Syed Qamar Hasan Rizvi observed,
“At this stage, it would not be out of place to observe that in certain cases where a passenger accidentally loses balance due to sudden jolting, overcrowding or abrupt movement / braking of a running train and falls therefrom, the possibility of the passenger coming into contact with the wheels or other moving parts of the train, cannot be ruled out. In such a situation, a human body may sustain grievous injuries, including severance or fragmentation, depending upon the manner and circumstances of the fall.”
“Therefore, the mere fact that the body of the deceased was found in multiple pieces cannot, by itself, lead to a conclusive inference that the case was one of the circumstances specified in the proviso to Section 124A of the Railways Act, 1989. For attracting the exceptions contained in the proviso to Section 124-A of the Railways Act, 1989, the Railways is required to establish the same by leading cogent and substantial evidence.”
Shiv Narayan Singh boarded the 'Lal-Qila Express' at Etawah on 21st November 2011 for Delhi. His widow's case was that he had bought a second class ticket and fell from the moving train near Sarai Bhupat Railway Station. She claimed Rs. 8,00,000 before the Railway Claims Tribunal, Lucknow, deposing as AW-1 and examining her husband's brother Ganga Singh as AW-2.
The Tribunal rejected the claim. No ticket was recovered, and the body having been found in three pieces on either side of the up line, with the head badly crushed and part of the brain missing, it held there was a strong probability that the deceased had been cut by a train, which took the case outside Sections 123(c)(2) and 124-A. It left the issues of dependency and relief undecided.
In appeal, the claimant argued that the finding of a run-over was conjecture, and that a falling passenger may be pulled under the wheels by the movement of the train. The Railways, relying on Supreme Court's decision in Kamrunnissa v. Union of India, contended that she had not discharged the initial burden of proving bona fide travel.
Applying Apex Court's decision in Union of India v. Rina Devi, wherein it was held that absence of a ticket does not negative bona fide travel and that the claimant's initial burden may be discharged by affidavit, the Court held that the widow had discharged it and the Railways had not rebutted it, having produced no ticket sale records for Etawah Railway Station.
On the Tribunal's inference from the condition of the body, it held,
“In the considered opinion of this Court, the said finding is based merely on presumption and is not supported by any independent oral or expert evidence.”
It observed that the post-mortem gave the cause of death as shock and haemorrhage from ante-mortem injuries, and the inquest report recorded a relative telling the police the deceased had fallen from a running train.
On the Divisional Railway Manager's report, the Court observed,
“The report itself proceeds on the basis that the deceased sustained fatal injuries due to an accidental fall from a train and then drew an adverse inference solely on account of the non-recovery of the journey ticket. Thus, the inference drawn by the D.R.M. in it's report is unsustainable in the absence of any other cogent material to establish that the deceased was not a bonafide passenger.”
Distinguishing Kamrunnissa on the ground that there had been no evidence of a ticket purchase in that case, the Court set aside the Tribunal's findings as perverse and held the widow to be a dependent under Section 123(b).
On quantum, the sum scheduled under the Railway Accidents and Untoward Incidents (Compensation) Rules, 1990 was Rs. 4,00,000 when the incident occurred and Rs. 8,00,000 from 01.01.2017. Applying Union of India v. Radha Yadav, under which a claimant gets whichever is higher of the sum on the date of the accident with reasonable interest and the sum prescribed on the date of the award, the Court found Rs. 4,00,000 with 6% interest fell short.
Accordingly, the appeal was allowed and the Railways directed to pay Rs. 8,00,000 within eight weeks, failing which the sum would carry interest at 9% per annum until payment.
Case Title: Lali v. Union Of India Through General Manager North Central Railway