BHASKAR BHATTACHARYA, J.

(1) This first appeal is at the instance of a claimant in a proceeding under Section 16 of the Railway Claims Tribunal Act, 1987, and is directed against an award dated 29th April, 2008, passed by the Railway Claims Tribunal, Kolkata Bench, thereby dismissing the said application on the ground that the claimant failed to prove the bona fide as well as accidental fall and the resultant death of also failed to produce any eyewitness to prove the accidental fall causing death of her husband. Being dissatisfied, the claimant has come up with the present first appeal.

(2) The appellant before us lodged a claim under Section 16 of the Railway Claims Tribunal Act, 1987 thereby praying for compensation of Rs.4 lakh for the death of her husband on the allegation that on 4th March, 2005 while he was travelling from Sainthia to Bolpur by Down Ganodevta Express with a valid second class ticket, he accidentally fell down from the running train between Sainthia and Bataspur and consequently, died. The application was opposed by the railway authority by filing written statement and its defence may be summed up thus: a) The claim-application was not maintainable as the applicant had no personal knowledge and the statements made in the claim-application appeared to be hearsay. It was denied that the victim was a passenger of the said train. As per claim-application, the deceased was a hawker, but according to the rules of the Railway, a vendor is neither a passenger nor a railway employee so as to attract the definition of "passenger" within the meaning of the Railways Act. Ganadevta Express with a valid second class ticket on 4th March, 2005, and that during the course of travelling, he accidentally fell down from the train. c) According to the Station Managers report, there was no record of such incident at Bataspur on 4th March, 2005 and the post-mortem report was merely a routine-record and did not prove any untoward incident.

(3) At the time of hearing, the claimant herself and one Bikash Das, an eyewitness of the incident, gave evidence in support of the claim, while none appeared on behalf of the Railway authority to controvert the evidence given by those two witnesses.

(4) Bikash Das, the PW-2, the alleged eyewitness of the incident, stated in his evidence that the deceased was known to him as he was also a fellow-hawker and on 4th March 2005, he along with the deceased boarded the Ganadevta Express for the journey from Sainthia to Bolpur. According to him, there was heavy rush inside the train and Tapan Das, the deceased, was the last person among them who boarded the train in that compartment. According to the said witness, after the train left Sainthia and came near Pariharpur Village, Tapan fell down from the train owing to the impact of the huge crowd inside the compartment. After he had fallen, the witness requested the other passengers to pull the chain but they did not. It was not possible for him to pull the chain as at Ahmedpur station and reported the incident to Station Master, Ahmedpur. Thereafter, he came to the spot by availing of a bus. On reaching the spot, he did not find the victim and came to know that he was carried away by some GRP personnel. Thereafter, he went to Sainthia railway station by walking along the railway track. In Sainthia, he found that the dead body of the victim was lying with GRPS/Sainthia and the dead body was handed over after the post-mortem. He denied the suggestion given to him that he was not with the victim and that the incident narrated by him was a false one.

(5) The learned Trial Judge by the award impugned herein came to the conclusion that it was not established that the deceased was travelling with a valid ticket. The Tribunal further held that it appeared from the first information report that information was given to the Railway Police at 22.55 hours on 4th March, 2005 that a dead body was lying at the Railway track. The same timing has been menti