The court leaned in favor of the claimants due to the beneficiary nature of the Act and the lack of concrete evidence supporting the Tribunal's assumption.

JUDGMENT

Manoj Kumar Ohri, J. (Oral)--By way of present appeal filed under Section 23 of the Railway Claims Tribunal Act, 1987 (hereinafter, referred to as `the Act'), the appellants/claimants have assailed judgment dated 06.12.2017 passed by the Railway Claims Tribunal, Principal Bench, Delhi in Case No. OA/II(u) No.64/2017, whereby the claim petition filed by the appellants came to be dismissed.

2. The facts, as available on record, are that the deceased i.e., Sh. Narender Kumar was a holder of Monthly Seasoned Ticket (in short, `MST') bearing No. L-06392884, which was valid for to and fro journey from Meerut City to Anand Vihar. The appellants had claimed that on 10.01.2017, while the deceased was travelling from Ghaziabad to Anand Vihar, due to sudden jerk and heavy rush of passengers in the compartment, he fell from the moving train at Sahibabad Railway Station resulting in grievous injuries and eventually his death.

3. Mr. Sanchit Vashistha, learned counsel for the appellants, submits that though the Tribunal had found the incident to have been an 'untoward incident', it erroneously came to a conclusion that the deceased was not a bonafide passenger at the relevant time.

4. Mr. Kavindra Gill, learned Senior Panel Counsel for the respondent, on the other hand, has contested the appeal by submitting that the Tribunal had gone through the Train Signal Register (in short, 'TSR') and came to the right conclusion that the deceased was not a bonafide passenger.

5. I have heard learned counsels for the parties and gone through the material placed on record.

6. Indisputably, on 10.01.2017 at 07:10 am, an information came to be recorded that some passengers present on the Sahibabad Railway Station reported seeing a person lying in a dead state. The MST recovered from the body of the deceased was verified and found to be validly issued. The Tribunal recorded a finding that the said MST was valid on the date of the incident. The MST authorized the deceased to travel to and fro from Meerut City to Anand Vihar and Sahibabad Railway Station falls between the above two railway stations. The Tribunal, while rejecting the claim petition, observed that as per the Train Signal Register (in short, 'TSR'), around the reported time of incident, only three trains had passed through the place of incident. The first two trains were superfast trains being Golden Temple Mail and Kalindi Express, and the third train was the Ghaziabad-EMU.

Admittedly, the body of the deceased was discovered very close to line No.6, platform No.3 of Sahibabad Railway Station.

7. The Tribunal disbelieved the possibility of fall of deceased from the first train i.e., Ghaziabad-EMU Train, which had arrived at Sahibabad Railway Station at 06:17 hours and departed from there at 06:18 hours as the incident was reported at 07:10 hrs. The Tribunal assumed that the deceased must have travelled in either of the superfast trains which had passed the Sahibabad Railway Station at 06:45 hours and 06:55 hours respectively, and while attempting to de-board, he suffered the fatal injuries. In the backdrop of this assumption, the MST recovered from the body of deceased was ignored as it was not accompanied by a separate superfast surcharge ticket.

8. It is evident that the claim petition was dismissed only on the aforenoted assumption. The Tribunal failed to take into account that the incident occurred in the early morning of January, a winter month. Merely because other passengers present at the Sahibabad Railway Station reported seeing a person lying in dead state on the railway track at 07:10 a.m. did not mean that the incident itself occurred at that time. The possibility that the incident could have occurred earlier and discovered later could not be ruled out as the Ghaziabad-EMU train had passed at 06:18 hours.

9. In view of the above, it is difficult to appreciate as to how the Tribunal has reached a conclusion that the deceased must be travelling in either of the superfas