HC refuses compensation to man for death of family members in accident

The Delhi High Court has refused to grant any compensation to a man, whose five family members including two minors were run over by a train in 2010.

The man, in his plea, claimed that his wife, son, daughter-in-law and two grand children had boarded an Electric Multiple Unit (EMU) train from Faridabad's New Town Railway Station to travel to Delhi on January 13, 2010 and the victims fell down from the moving train opposite a platform when the driver applied a sudden brake.

The plea alleged that after a minute, a Rajdhani coming from the opposite side crushed to death the five persons.

The court said it was of the view that the five deceased persons were not bona fide passengers of the EMU train.

"Even assuming that the five persons were travelling in the EMU train, all the five persons cannot fall together upon a jerk. The averment of jerk at the railway station is also not believable as all trains slow down at the platform," Justice J R Midha said.

The court also said that deceased persons could not have fallen on the adjoining track which was about eight feet away and the Rajdhani train on the adjoining track came after more than three hours.

It said the pleas were filed on false averments and not entitled to any compensation and dismissed the appeals against the Railway Claims Tribunal's order.

The court said there was no infirmity in the orders of the claims tribunal which had also dismissed the pleas seeking compensation from the railways.

The man, in his appeal, had claimed that the victims were bona fide passengers and were holding valid tickets which were lost during the accident.

The counsel for railways had claimed that the victims were not bona fide passengers of any train and their claims were false and if they were travelling by the EMU, they could not have been run over by the Rajdhani which came three hours later.