Cockroach lands Railways in the soup, costs it Rs 57K

Sandeep Rana

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, September 29

The UT consumer forum has ordered the Railways to pay Rs 50,000 as compensation to a Sector 22 resident, who found a dead cockroach in the soup twice on the Shatabdi Express while travelling from New Delhi to Chandigarh. The forum also directed the Railways to pay Rs 7,000 as litigation cost to the complainant.

“...the other parties (Railways) are least bothered about monitoring the quality of food being served by them to passengers despite charging so much money under this count.  In the instant case, the other parties have apparently committed a grave deficiency in service by serving unhygienic and unhealthy soup containing a dead cockroach, not once but twice, to the complainant on board the Shatabdi Express, putting his life at stake. They are liable to adequately compensate him for the mental agony and physical harassment suffered by him,” observed the forum in its order pronounced by president Rajan Dewan and member Priti Malhotra.

The complainant, Anil Kumar, averred in his plaint that he travelled by train on December 23 last year. During the journey, he was served hot soup by the catering staff of the Railways.  After partaking of some soup, he noticed a dead cockroach in the soup bowl and immediately called the catering staff and showed it to them.

The staff took the bowl with the remaining soup and replaced it with another bowl of soup. Shockingly, he again noticed a dead cockroach in the bowl and brought the matter to the notice of the staff.  He then made an entry in the complaint book.

He averred that after a few minutes, the catering staff, accompanied by some other persons, approached him and tried to pressure him not to pursue the complaint.  He also received phone calls in this regard and got scared. 

Pleading that there was no deficiency in service on its part, the Railways replied that the food contract on the train was allotted to Satyam Caterers and the contractor was fined Rs 10,000 on January 13 this year.