Railways must compensate passengers for train delays: SC

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The Supreme Court has ordered that railways are liable to pay compensation in case of delays unless the reason for late arrival is beyond their control. SC told that time is important for every individual passenger and railways are liable for paying compensation for late arrival. M R Shah and Aniruddha Bose who constituted the SC bench denied the appeal of Northern Western Railway against the verdict of the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (NCDRC).

Earlier, the consumer court had ordered railways to pay compensation to Sanjay Shukla for late arrival of a train  due to which Shukla missed his flight. Shukla and three others had boarded the train at Alwar in Rajasthan to Jammu Tawi in 2016. But the train reached four hours behind the scheduled at Jammu Tawi station. Due to which they missed the connecting flight to Srinagar.  The SC confirmed the court’s order for compensating the complainants.

The complainant had to bear the loss of flight tickets and had to take a taxi to travel to Srinagar from Jammu.

NCDRC had ordered the Northern Western Railway to pay Rs 15,000 for taxi expenses, Rs 10,000 towards booking expenses along with Rs 5,000 each towards inconvenience and litigation expenses.

The railways was asked to provide the proof and explain the late arrival of the train if the delay had occurred due to reasons beyond their control.

The Bench’s order said, “Unless and until the evidence is laid explaining the delay and it is established and proved that delay occurred which was beyond their control and/or even there was some justification for delay, the railway is liable to pay the compensation for delay and late arrival of trains.”

The order said that there may be cases wherein the railways have a number of genuine reasons to explain the delayed running of trains. So in those cases, the rules state that no liability is upon them to pay compensation for late arrival.