Railways to pay Rs 30,000 to man who missed flight due to delayed train

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The Supreme Court has slammed the Indian Railways for the delayed running of trains and directed it to pay a compensation of Rs 30,000 to a man who missed his flight because of one such incident.

A bench of Justices MR Shah and Aniruddha Bose noted that, if the Railways failed to explain why a train was delayed, it would be liable to compensate the passengers if they filed a deficiency of service complaint before a
consumer forum, as per a Times of India report.

Observing that passengers' time is precious and someone must be held accountable for train delays, the court said, "These are the days of competition and accountability. If public transportation has to survive and compete with private players, they have to improve the system and their working culture. Citizen/passenger cannot be at the mercy of the authorities/administration. Somebody has to accept the responsibility."

The complainant, Sanjay Shukla, along with his family missed the flight scheduled at 12 noon from Jammu to Srinagar after the train, scheduled to reach Jammu at 8.10 am on June 11, 2016, arrived nearly four hours late at 12 noon.

With no chance of catching the flight, Shukla had to take a taxi to travel from Jammu to Srinagar at a cost of Rs 15,000 and pay Rs 10, 000 for lodging at Srinagar.

Additional solicitor general Aishwarya Bhati contended that in view of Rule 114 and Rule 115 of the Indian Railway Conference Association Coaching Tariff No. 26 Part-I (Volume-I), there shall not be any liability of the railways to pay compensation for train delays.

However, the Supreme Court upheld the concurrent orders of the district, state and national consumer forums granting Rs 30,000 compensation with 9 percent interest to Shukla.