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This is an archive article published on May 15, 2024
Karnataka HC reverses Railway tribunal decision, awards Rs 8 lakh compensation to family of woman who died after jumping off train
The woman died after jumping off a train she wrongly boarded at the Channapatna railway station in 2014.
The court ordered payment of compensation amounting to Rs 4 lakh within two months at 7 per cent per annum from the date of filing the claim. If that sum amounts to less than Rs 8 lakh, then Rs 8 lakh is to be paid. (File)
The Karnataka High Court has reversed a Railway Claims Tribunal decision and awarded a minimum compensation of Rs 8 lakh to the family of a woman who died after jumping off a moving train she had wrongly boarded in February 2014.
Jayamma and her sister Rathnamma wrongly boarded the Tuticorin Express at the Channapatna railway station in Karnataka instead of the Tirupati passenger train bound for Ashokapuram. When they came to know this and alighted, Jayamma fell on the platform and sustained fatal injuries.
The Railways had argued before the tribunal that the incident was not an accidental fall as described in the Railway Act but amounted to self-inflicted injury by alighting from the train. Hence, it was not liable to pay compensation, Railways had said. The tribunal had ruled that the deceased had taken a significant risk by alighting from a moving train and fallen due to her own act, noting that she ought to have gotten off at the next station or pulled the alarm chain.
In the April 19 order on an appeal by the woman’s family, a single-judge bench of Justice H P Sandesh cited a prior Supreme Court judgment and observed that the tribunal had wrongly applied the exception in Section 124a of the Railway Act, which prescribes compensation for untoward incidents but bars it in case of self-inflicted injury.
The bench said, ” The tribunal… wrongly invoked Section 124-A of the Indian Railways Act, 1989 and arrived at an erroneous conclusion that it is a self-inflicted injury and the judgment of the Apex Court in RINA DEVI’s case is very clear that “Death or injury in course of boarding or de-boarding train will be “untoward incident”. Victim will be entitled to compensation and will not fall under proviso to Section 124A merely on plea of negligence of victim as contributing factor.”
The court ordered payment of compensation amounting to Rs 4 lakh within two months at 7 per cent per annum from the date of filing the claim. If that sum amounts to less than Rs 8 lakh, then Rs 8 lakh is to be paid.
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