Supreme Court: a lost ticket doesn't defeat compensation for a passenger who fell from a train

The Supreme Court restored an award of ₹8 lakh with interest to the parents of a young man who fell from the general compartment of a train between Sabarmati and Ahmedabad on 27 September 2017 and died of his injuries a month later. The Railway Claims Tribunal had found that he suffered an accidental fall, an 'untoward incident' under Section 123(c)(2) of the Railways Act, 1989, and that he was a bona fide passenger. The Gujarat High Court reversed the award, mainly because no ticket was recovered and the train was not named. The Supreme Court held that the father's statement on oath that his son had bought a ticket, which was lost along with his other belongings, discharged the claimants' initial burden.

The burden then shifted to the Railways, which had not rebutted it; its witnesses had not even checked the victim's pockets. Given that he was in hospital for over a month, it was unlikely the ticket would have been kept. On a preponderance of probabilities he was a bona fide passenger, and the strict liability under Section 124-A, as explained in Union of India v. Prabhakaran Vijaya Kumar, applied. The Court also disregarded the Railways' inquiry report, prepared seven months later, because the rules require an immediate inquiry and the delay was the Railways' own.