IN A significant verdict, the Supreme Court on Friday said the mere absence of a train ticket on the body of a deceased passenger cannot be a ground to deny compensation to the victim’s family in a railway-accident case. The ruling, aimed to strengthen the rights of railway passengers and their families, set aside the concurrent orders of the Railway Claims Tribunal (RCT) and the Madhya Pradesh High Court, and awarded a compensation of Rs 8 lakh to Lata, the widow of a man who died after falling from a running train in 2015. A bench of Justices Sanjay Karol and N Kotiswar Singh allowed the appeal of the widow, whose compensation claim was rejected by the RCT and the high court on the ground that her husband was not proved to be a bona-fide passenger because his ticket was not found after the accident.

 

The top court said the Railways Act is a beneficial welfare legislation and must receive a liberal and purposive interpretation. Referring to earlier verdicts, Justice Karol, who authored the judgment, said, “The beneficial legislations are to receive purposive and liberal construction in furtherance of the intentions of the legislature, as can be discerned, instead of a literal or restrictive approach being adopted. The overall idea is to make the intention so understood, functional.”