Pay Rs 5,000 for failing to wake up passenger: Redress forum to Railways

The railways contended that their customer care does not guarantee that passengers would be woken up

The Betul district consumer dispute redressal forum has directed the central railway to pay Rs 5,000 for not alerting a passenger who had registered for the wake-up call service.

The forum presided by Virendra S Patidar also asked it to pay Rs 2,000 as litigation costs to Girish Garg, an advocate by profession.

The incident took place on June 13, 2015 when Garg had boarded Coimbatore-Jaipur Superfast Express (12969) from Betul station around 2.05 PM.

"I contacted customer care of the railways on number 139 and requested them to wake me up before I reach my destination Kota at 1.40 AM the next day," Garg (48) told PTI.

The customer care executive registered my request and assured to wake me up, he said.

But, he said no one woke him up.

"Luckily, at the eleventh hour, I woke up on my own and in a hurry alighted from the train at Kota station," he added.

"After this, I approached the consumer forum seeking Rs 20,000 from the railways for the mental harassment caused to me," Garg said.

The railways in its submission contended that their customer care does not guarantee that passengers would be woken up.

Garg said the consumer forum on April 26 asked the chief manager of central railway to pay Rs 5,000 to him within a month.