Mysuru: A City Consumer Court has ordered the Indian Railways to pay Rs. 37,000 as compensation to a family who faced a 33-hour ordeal of travelling standing inside a train for 1,950 kilometres as their reserved berths were illegally occupied by other travellers. Interestingly, the complainant himself argued his case in the Court.
The three family members had valid tickets worth Rs.740 each and the tickets were booked in Mysuru City Railway Station and the total value of the tickets is Rs. 2,220. The journey on May 25, 2017 in the sleeper class of the Jaipur-Mysore Superfast Express (Train No.12976) from Ujjain was a nightmarish one for Vijesh, a resident of Satyamarg Main, behind ICICI Bank Lane, Siddartha Layout and two of his family members.
After boarding from Ujjain, they were shocked to see that their berths (coach No.S5 and berth Nos. 57, 58 and 63) were taken over by others in the compartment which was crowded by unreserved passengers. As the journey began, Vijesh complained to the coach TTE about their seats and requested them to vacate the occupants. But the TTE did not bother to heed to his request so did the RPF personnel in the train, when Vijesh took the matter to them.
Vijesh then tried the grievance redressal options of the Indian Railways including helpline and SMS service but his efforts were futile. He even got down at Bhopal Station in Madhya Pradesh and Kazipet in Telangana and physically lodged complaints to regain the berths reserved for his family. Unfortunately, the Railway officials offered no help.
After reaching Mysore City Railway Station, he contacted the Railway officials with a complaint but the authorities cited territorial jurisdiction as the reason and Vijesh was told to go back to Ujjain where he started the journey to lodge a complaint.
Having no other alternative, Vijesh then approached the District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum in Mysuru on June 23, 2017 with a complaint against the South Western Railways Division Railway Manager Mysuru and the Division Commercial Manager. He sought a relief of Rs. 3,32,597. He himself argued the case in the Court.
To substantiate his claims, Vijesh submitted photographs of the overcrowded compartment. In their response, the Mysuru Railway authorities quoted Indian Railways’ territorial jurisdiction and requested the Consumer Court to dismiss the passenger’s plea.
Passing the order, the copy of which is with Star of Mysore, the Consumer Court President H.M. Shivakumara Swamy and Members M.V. Bharathi and M.C. Devakumar slammed the Mysuru Railways authorities.
“The contention of maintainability of the complaint on the ground of lack of jurisdiction is not justified, because there are several train runs from opposite party station, beyond its territorial jurisdiction,” the judges observed.
In a verdict pronounced on Friday (Jan. 19), the Consumer Forum indicted the Railways for deficiency in service and ordered to pay a compensation of Rs. 37,000 (Rs.25,000 towards the deficiency in service, Rs. 10,000 for the mental agony, inconvenience and Rs.2,000 towards litigation expenses) to Vijesh for the inconvenience and hardship caused to the family on train despite holding valid tickets.
The Railways have been ordered to pay the compensation within 60 days, failing which the court imposed a daily penalty of Rs. 200 until compliance. It took 6 months and 28 days for the Court to pass the order.
The compensation is megre .The consumer suffered so much not only in travel and conducting the tedious court formalities , foregoing his valuable time and earnings absent from work.
The compensation should be as high as Rs.10 lakh so as to make the railways think twice before ignoring such complaints in future.
Kudos to the traveler for pursuing the matter which otherwise avoided by common man.
can’t agree more
Shame on Indian railways officials. Hats of to the gentleman who fought for the rights. But the compensation was peanuts. The same in foreign countries it would have been several lakhs. These kind of problems are common in North India . Though systems r placed people r not ready to follow.
Bow to our human vijesh who showed the illegal activities happening in trains and executed rights.The compensation is not enough.Dear all this is a startup example to fight to our good rights .Request to cour to penalise those TTE also without fail.We don’t know how many of us are going through these type of issues and unkown to address at right place
due respects to the gentleman who really dragged the railways for the justice . we Indians comprise everywhere leading to encouragement of inefficiencies, hats off to all that has really taken pains, hope this type of incidents do no occur,
why the tte could not be terminated? why not so the RPF and so on who did not respond in time ?
it is the consumer that is paying their salaries !
The railway police should involve in such situations and help the passengers. The Mysore railway staff showed attitude and they should be also be penalized /suspended till they can give a satisfactory response to this incident.
The compensation should be in Crores at least 1 crore per passenger so that such incidents would not happen in future.