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Can the Railways be held liable for giving wrong information at the time of issuing the ticket and causing the passenger undue harassment?
In response to his complaint before the consumer court, the Railways argued that the intimation about the change in the route was given through the media. Dismissing it, the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission pointed out that the railway staff manning the ticket counter should have known of the change in the route while issuing the ticket. Even later, the Railways could have communicated this information through SMS, since the mobile number and other details were in the reservation form filled by the complainant. The Commission therefore said it did not see any reason to interfere with the State Commission's order. On account of the misinformation given by the Railways, when I booked my e-ticket, I missed my train and had to take a cab at great expense to attend an extremely important job interview. When I brought this to the notice of the Railways, they only offered to refund the cost of the ticket. But I feel that the Railways should also compensate me for the additional expenses that I incurred, besides mental tension and harassment. Have there been such cases before the consumer court? The case that I have quoted above will answer your question. Let me quote another case very similar to yours, decided by the Delhi District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum recently. Here, the complainant booked a ticket over the internet to travel from Allahabad to Delhi, a month in advance (in February 2013) and found to his dismay on the date of travel, on arriving at the platform that the Railways had cancelled that particular train since December 2012! Obviously, the information had not been updated on the website. Despite booking his ticket a month in advance, the passenger was unable to travel that day. The Forum awarded him a compensation of Rs 25,000, including the cost of litigation, to the consumer. (Manoj Kumar vs GM, Northern Railway, Case no: CC/663/13, decided on January 20, 2014)
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In a number of cases,
the consumer courts have held the Railways accountable for
misinforming the passenger about the train timings or route or its
stoppage or not informing the passenger about changes in the train
route or timings. In one of the first cases of that kind, the Tamil
Nadu State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission held the Railways
guilty of gross negligence for issuing a ticket to a passenger to
travel by Chennai Express on a day the train did not ply at all and
awarded a compensation of Rs 7,500 to the passenger. S.Pushpavanam and
Anr vs the General Manager, Southern Railway, OP no 7 of 1991). More
recently, the West Bengal State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission
awarded a compensation of Rs 1 lakh to one such victim and this was
upheld by the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission. (UOI
through DRM, Sealdah Division, Kolkata vs Susanta Kumar Saha, RP no
4882 of 2013, decided on January 21, 2014). The complaint here was
that when Saha purchased a sleeper class ticket on September 26, 2011
from the Railway reservation counter at Barrackpur railway station for
a journey from Kharagpur to Puri by Utkal Kalinga Express on October
11, 2011, he was not told that the train did not run through Kharagpur.
Even on the date of the journey, the railway service enquiry did not
inform him of the change in the route. It was only on reaching the
railway station that he learnt from the station master that the train
route had been changed since May 2010 and that it would not touch
Kharagpur at all.