An elderly couple from Bengaluru won Rs 40,000 as compensation after they were fined Rs 22,300 for being "ticketless travellers" despite having confirmed AC first-class tickets for a Rajdhani Express.
Whitefield resident Alok Kumar had booked the tickets for his parents aged 77 and 71, but the journey on March 21, 2022, had turned into a traumatic experience for the elderly couple when the ticket examiner checked their PNR number and said that the status of their confirmed tickets was "no room", the Times of India reported.
The couple showed the ticket checker their confirmed tickets but he tagged them as “ticketless travellers” and slapped a fine of Rs 22,300.
When Kumar came to know about this, he filed a complaint with the IRCTC, and approached officials from the South Western Railway (SWR) but did not receive any response, the publication reported. He then approached a consumer court in Bengaluru with a complaint against the chief booking officer of SWR and IRCTC officials for lapses.
While IRCTC claimed that it is only an online ticketing platform for passengers and isn’t involved in fining passengers, SWR officials failed to appear in court despite being served a legal notice, the Times of India reported.
In a recent verdict, the consumer court ordered the payment of Rs 30,000 as compensation to Kumar's parents for harassment, a refund of the fine amount extracted, and Rs 10,000 towards Kumar's litigation expenses.
In a separate incident, an Indian Railways passenger has shared a video of an AC first class compartment packed with ticketless travellers, questioning the point of paying extra for AC first class when ticketless passengers crowd the coach anyway, creating a nuisance for paying customers.
Swati Raj shared the clip on X which shows dozens of men lined up in the corridor, standing shoulder to shoulder. “This is the current situation of AC 1st tier in Mahananda 15483. I request management to check this immediately as we are not feeling safe when we are paying extra for it,” she wrote.
Read more: Passenger claims she was 'overcharged' for vegetarian thali at Rs 150. IRCTC responds
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