Freak tragedy: Railways to pay Rs 8.7 lakh

Deepkamal Kaur

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Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, February 8

The District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum, Jalandhar, has ordered a compensation of Rs 8.7 lakh to a Pathankot resident whose wife died after an upper berth of a train in which they were travelling fell on her six years ago.

Jatinder Saxena, his wife Meenu Saxena, younger daughter Neha, son Sahil and four relatives were returning home after the marriage of the couple’s elder daughter, Upasana, when the incident occurred on January 27, 2011, in Jalandhar district.

The family had first moved the District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum, Gurdaspur, in July 2011. The complaint was allowed in February 2012 and orders were passed to pay Rs8.7 lakh.

However, railway officials appealed before the State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission against the order, which was set aside on the grounds that the Gurdaspur forum did not have the territorial jurisdiction to handle the complaint. In July 2015, the complainant was asked to move the appropriate forum in Jalandhar, where he sought Rs15 lakh as relief.

In his complaint, Jatinder said: “We reached Jalandhar, changed our train and boarded Shalimar Express from Jalandhar to Pathankot after purchasing tickets in the general compartment. Since a relative, Anil Kumar, was disabled (his right leg was bandaged due to a surgery), the train ticket examiner advised him and Meenu (as an attendant) to sit in the compartment for the disabled.

“When the train started from Jalandhar Cantonment, Meenu (45) was sitting on the lower berth. Just then, the upper berth came off, fell on Meenu and hit her on the back of the neck. Since it was thought that the pain would subside, they did not stop the train initially,” he said.

By the time they reached Dasuya, her husband (then sitting in the general compartment) came to know about the accident. He arranged for a stretcher at Dasuya railway station on which Meenu was taken to a private hospital in Pathankot. After an X-ray and MRI, doctors reported that Meenu had suffered fracture of C-6 vertebra. It being a medico-legal case, he went back to the railway police chowki at Chaki Bank, Pathankot, to lodge a DDR (daily diary report). Doctors referred her to the PGI Chandigarh.

From the PGI, the family shifted her to a hospital at Mohali, where she remained admitted for 17 days. Her body got paralysed, and later she was admitted to the Civil Hospital, Pathankot. Jatinder said he spent Rs2.58 lakh on treatment, besides medicines and other expenses.

The complainant alleged that the death of Meenu, who ran a boutique, occurred on account of negligence of the Railways, who did not maintain its compartment. The railway authorities maintained that no accident took place, but the forum relied on the DDR filed by the victim’s husband and newspaper reports.