The railway administration is not required to serve a notice to a party before weighment at a railway station enroute, and it has the right to reweigh any consignment without giving prior notice to the consignor, consignee, or endorsee.

In this application under Article 226 of the Constitution, the petitioners have sought for a direction on the respondents to refund the punitive charges of Rs. 9,50,114/- recovered from the petitioners for carrying goods in wagons beyond the permissible capacity and for directing the respondents to withdraw the demand of wharfage and demurrage charges and to release the five wagons of coal detained by the respondents for the purpose of realizing the said demurrage and wharfage charges.

2. The facts briefly are that the petitioner No. 1 registered an indent for a rake for despatch of coal from Jogighopa Railway Station. Pursuant to such registration of indent, a rake was placed and the petitioner No. 1 loaded Nangal Dry Coal in 35 wagons on 26-1-97. Since no weigh-bridge was available at Jogighopa Railway Station, the coal was loaded in the said wagons without weighment and a certificate dated 26-1-97 was issued by the Railway-authorities of Jogighopa Railway Station to the effect that measurement of the loaded wagons could not be taken by the supplied measurement rod due to insufficient space inside the wagons between the loadable height and roof of the wagons, but on visual check, wagons were found correctly loaded up to the permissible loading height, marked inside the wagons under the supervision of the Chief Goods Superintendent (for short, "the CGS"). In the R. Rs. issued by the Railway-authorities of Jogighopa Railway Station, however, endorsements were made that the wagons were to be weighed at the weigh-bridge station enroute or at destination. The 35 wagons were thereafter despatched and at the Station Laksar the wagons were weighed on the weigh-bridge and it was found that most of the 35 wagons were over-loaded beyond the permissible limit. Thereafter, when the wagons arrived at the destination Station Rohtak in Haryana on 1-2-97, the CGS, Rohtak intimated the petitioner No. 2, the consignor of the coal, to deposit Rs. 12,23,860/- as undercharges at the time of delivery by his letter dated 1-2-97. In reply, the petitioner No. 2 wrote to the CGS, Northern Railway, Rohtak, inter alia, that before issuing the R.Rs. the authorities of the Forwarding Station checked the loaded height of the coal according to their specification and then issued the R.Rs. after endorsing on each R.R. that the coal was loaded within the permissible height. In the said letter dated 1-2-97, the petitioner No. 2 stated that on these facts the question of any under-charges for overloading did not arise and it should be presumed that the weigh-bridge where the wagons were weighed was not in working order. In the said letter dated 1-2-87, the petitioner No. 2 further requested the CGS to check the loading mark of each loaded wagon and to send the rake for reweighment as the petitioner No. 2 was not ready to accept the excess weight. But the CGS, Rohtak Railway Station informed the petitioner No. 2 in his letter dated 2-2-97 that the coal rake containing 35 wagons was weighed by the vigilance team at Laksar and on the basis of such weighment punitive charges amounting to Rs. 9,50,114/- were raised and requested the petitioner No. 2 for arranging payment before taking delivery of the same. The petitioner No. 2 then wrote to the CGS, Rohtak Railway Station that they would furnish a Bank Guarantee for Rs. 9,50,114/- for the under-charges at the time of delivery and requested him to issue a certificate of coal height in each wagon before unloading the rake. But the said request of the petitioner No. 2 was not accepted and the CGS, Rohtak Railway Station again requested the petitioner No. 2 to pay the punitive charges in his letter dated 2-2-97. The petitioner No. 2 thereafter made a request to send the rake of coal for reweighment at the nearest weigh-bridge in their presence and that they were willing to pay the amount of reweighment and haulage charges on demand. The petitioner No. 2 was thereafter informed on 4-2-97 that reweighment of coal