HC upset with Railways over delay in paying damage

Upset over delay by the Railways in payment of damage to the victims of August 2012 Sambalpur train accident, the Orissa High Court today ordered that the compensation amount should be paid within four weeks after the next to kin of victims' submit their legal heir certificates.
The order came after a Division Bench comprising Chief Justice A K Goel and Justice A K Rath took up a contempt petition filed against the Indian Railways.
The Court also allowed the Railways to withdraw its review petition which was filed within weeks after the HC in November 2012 had ordered the Railways to pay adequate compensation to the victims of the train accident.

It may be mentioned here that after over 16 months of the HC order, the Railways had informed last month that an amount of Rs 77,44,569 was sanctioned to pay as damage to the families of all 14 persons who died in the train accident.
But, the Railways delayed the payment on the plea that identities of the victims' kin were yet to be ascertained.
Appearing for the victims' families, advocate Prabir Kumar Das offered his services to cooperate with the Railways in identifying the kin of the deceased.
He informed the Court that he would take initiative in submitting the legal heir certificates of the beneficiaries before the DRM of Sambalpur within a month following which the HC asked the Railways to pay the compensation amount within four weeks after submission of the certificates.

The accident had taken place on August 12, 2012 when an Express train hit an auto-rickshaw in which the victims were crossing the railway tracks at an unmanned level-crossing at Khairapally near Sambalpur.