MIRO DEVI vs UNION OF INDIA

THE complainant in this case is the mother of Late Capt. Kulwant Singh, who was a serving officer of the Indian Army attached to 5 J&K Rifles. On 4.5.1988, Capt. Singh fell down from a running railways train while he was travelling from Pathankot to Jwalamukhi Road and sustained fatal injuries. The incident took place near Nandpur -Bhatoli Railway Station at about 11.30 a.m. The injured was placed in a cot and was moved to the primary health centre at a place called Nagro Surian. While on the way to the said place, an ambulance which had been summoned, met them whereupon the injured was transferred to the ambulance and was rushed to the primary health centre but the doctor on duty at the centre after conducting a thorough examination of the injured declared him dead.

THE case put forward by the complainant is that her deceased son had gone to the toilet in the compartment and while he was returning from there, there was a sudden jerk of the train which was running on a narrow guage track and was negotiating a curve at a high speed and as a result of the said jerk the deceased was thrown towards the door and since the door had defective locking system, it suddenly flew open on account of the jerk and as a consequence the deceased was thrown out of the train. On this basis, the complainant alleged that there was gross negligence and deficiency in service on the part of the railway authorities and has sought to recover from the Union of India (Opposite Party) a sum of Rs. 10,00,580/- by way of compensation for the loss caused to her by reason of the untimely demise of her son. In the written statement filed by the respondent, it is contended that the complaint petition which has been filed only in December, 1992 in respect of the incident of death by accident which took place as early as on 4.5.1988 is clearly barred by limitation and hence this complaint should be dismissed on this preliminary ground. On the merits, it is stated by the respondents that the version put forward by the complainant regarding the circumstances under which the deceased happened to fall down from the train is not correct or true. According to the respondents, the deceased had consumed alchohol. While he was in a drunken state and was in an inebriated condition he had opened the door and was standing on the foot-step of the coach leaning out of the train holding on to the handle near the door with only one of his hands and since the train was negotiating a curve at some speed he had lost his balance and fallen on to the track. In the circumstances, the respondents contend that the accident had taken place only on account of the negligence of the deceased himself and not due to any fault or deficiency on the part of the railway administration.

EXCEPTING for an affidavit filed by the complainant who has no personal knowledge of the relevant facts relating to the manner in which the accident had occurred, no other evidence worth the name has been adduced on the side of the complainant.

ON the very date of occurrence of the accident an FIR had been prepared by the police authorities and the English translation of the said First Information Report has been made available to us by the Counsel for the respondent. After referring to the post-mortem report which mentioned that alcohol was found in the contents of the viscera of the deceased, it was stated in the First Information Report that "from this it is concluded that injured Kulwant Singh was travelling in a drunken state and in the same condition he stood on the foot-step of the coach and he was drunk at that time due to his own fault and negligence he fell-down from the train and got himself injured. Later on injured had died". An official enquiry was held at Bhatoli into the circumstances relating to the accident in question in which as many as eight witnesses were examined. The said enquiry resulted in the following finding entered by the Enquiry Officer-Assistant Commercial Superintendent-I of Ferozepur: "keeping in view all the available circumstances I hold the deceased responsible for endangering his life through his action of opening carriage door of a running train and leaning out while the train was negotiating a curve, he seems to have lost his balance and could not anticipate the imminent peril". The Enquiry Officer has found that the Guard of the train could not be obsolved of the charge of dereliction of duty in not having come to the site of accident to render First Aid to the injured but since the station staff had rushed there and had rendered all possible and requisite help in providing First Aid, and had called for the ambulance and arranged for the transportation of the injured on a cot to the primary health centre, the remissness on the part of the Guard did not result in any delay in making the first aid available to the injured person as well as in arranging for his manual and vehicular transportation to the nearest station where medical assistance could be provided. Besides the aforesaid material, we have only some translations of certain unsworn statements given by one Chuni Lal, a shopkeeper conducting business near the sue of the accident and one Sita Ram, both of which were given their statements before the District Magistrate, Kangra. We are not inclined to place any reliance on those statements since those witnesses have not filed any affidavits nor have they been brought before this Commission to give evidence as witnesses.

THE complainant had approached the Railway Claims Tribunal with application for recovery of Rs. 10 lakhs by way of compensation but that application was dismissed by the Tribunal as per an order dated 23.11.1992 on the preliminary ground that since there was no accident to the train in question and the injuries sustained by the deceased were not in consequence of any accident to the train the jurisdiction of the Tribunal was not attracted and hence the application was not maintainable. Inasmuch as the petitioner was pursuing a wrong remedy before the Railway Claims Tribunal, we consider that the period spent by her and prosecuted in the said application before the wrong Forum which did not have jurisdiction to grant her any relief should be excluded in computing the period of the limitation for this complaint petition. Hence, we overrule the objection raised by the respondent that the complaint is time-barred.

HOWEVER , on the merits, we find after a careful scrutiny of all the materials available on record, that the only conclusion possible is that the complainant has totally failed to establish that the deceased had sustained injuries by falling from the running train as a result of any negligence or deficiency on the part of the railway administration. On the other hand, the evidence on record would indicate that the deceased was in a drunken state and in that condition he had stood on the footboard of the compartment of a running train holding on to the door handle with only one of his hands at a time when the train was negotiating a curve and it was as a consequence of this rash and negligent act of his own that he happened to fall down from the running train and sustain fatal injuries. In the light of the conclusion reached by us that no negligence or deficiency in service has been made out against the respondent, the claim of the complainant for recovery of the compensation from the respondent cannot be sustained. The complaint petition is accordingly dismissed. The parties will bear their respective costs.