The Supreme Court has asked the Railways to pay compensation to the family of a man, who died due to heart attack while trying to board a moving train. A bench led by Chief Justice of India H L Dattu directed the Railways to shell out Rs 4 lakh along with an interest of 6 per cent to the wife and children of Durai Somnathan, who had died of cardiac arrest while running along the moving train. Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi and advocate Diksha Rai argued that the incident could not be covered under the ambit of an “untoward incident”, fastening liability on the Railways to pay compensation. They submitted before the bench that the man had died due to his own health conditions and that the Railways could not be said to be at fault by any stretch of imagination. The bench however told the counsel to pay the compensation in the present case, and agreed to keep the question of law open, as to whether such events would come under the definition of “untoward incident” under Section 123 (C) of the Railway Claims Tribunal Act, 1966. Somnathan along with his wife and daughter had on March 4, 2008 bought a joint ticket for travelling to Kumbakonam town in Tamil Nadu’s Thanjavur district. They boarded a train at Dindigul Junction but just when it was about to move, they realised that they have boarded a wrong train. Somnathan deboarded the train but before his wife and daughter could get down, the train started moving. He ran along the moving train and while he hastened, he suffered a cardiac arrest and died. The Railway Claims Tribunal at Chennai had declined to pay the compensation but the Madras High Court held that death due to cardiac arrest would come within the definition of “untoward incident”. It granted his wife Elambal and children a compensation of Rs 4 lakh along with interest from the date of the incident.
