Deepak Chhabra JUDGMENT
Deepak Chhabra, Member (T)
1. The claim application was filed by the applicant/injured Gurvinder Singh s/o. Shri Jagdish Singh under Section 16 of the Railway Claims Tribunal Act seeking compensation of Rupees Four Lac for the injuries sustained by him in an alleged train untoward incident. As per pleadings, the case of the injured/applicant is that on 13.07.2014 the applicant alongwith his friends Gurjit Singh and Prabhjot Singh was going to Rajpura from Amritsar and boarded train No. 64552 Dn at about 1.30 PM. At about 2.00 PM, when the said train reached Tangra station, the applicant got down from the train to have water and after having water when he again boarded the train but due to slipping of his foot and losing his grip of hand, he accidentally fell down from the moving train. The applicant fell into track and run-over by the train and was taken to Amandeep Hospital, Amritsar by his friends in ambulance. It has been claimed by the injured applicant that the applicant was travelling on valid railway ticket which was lost in the incident.
2. In written statement, filed by respondent railways have denied and disputed various averments made in the claim application. It has been averred by the respondent railways that the present claim petition is not maintainable either in law or on facts and further the claim of the claimant is based on fraud. The claimant is not entitled to claim under Section 124A of the Railways Act, 1989 read with Section 16 of the Railway Claims Tribunal Act, 1987. The injured does not come under the definition of bona fide passenger as specified in Section 2(29) of the Railways Act as no train ticket has been placed on record. That the injured, if suffered any injuries that were due to his own criminal act. The injured did not met with any untoward incident and as such the present claim does not fall under the definition of 'untoward incident' as specified in Section 123(c)(2) of the Railways Act. In fact, a false story has been cooked up by the claimant to get the compensation from respondent. There was no accidental falling of the injured from the train. The claim petition is also liable to be dismissed as the averments made in it are contrary to documents placed on record. Rest of paragraphs were also denied and the claim application was sought to be dismissed with costs.
3. No replication has been filed by the claimant. On examination of the pleadings, following issues were framed:-
1. Whether the injured/applicant was a bona fide passenger of train at the time of incident?
2. Whether the alleged incident is covered within the ambit of Section 123(c)(2) read with Section 124A of the Railways Act?
3. What are the scheduled and non-scheduled injuries sustained by the applicant injured?
4. Relief.
4. Both the parties were given opportunity to adduce evidence and to prove their case inter-se.
Applicant:
5. Injured applicant has filed his affidavit and he was cross-examined before the bench deposing that the incident occurred on 13.07.2014 and they were travelling from Amritsar to Rajpura. On 12.07.2014 he had gone to Golden Temple with his friends. He is an educated person and had mentioned in his claim application that he had gone to Golden Temple on 12.07.2014. He admitted that there is no such mention in para 6 of his claim application. He could not say whether he had mentioned about purchasing of ticket in his claim application or not. He could not tell the distance from Amritsar to Tangra but the train reached Tangra in half an hour. It was a passenger train but he did not know the number of the train and did not know the timi........