The main legal point established in the judgment is that the liability of the Railway Administration to pay compensation to victims of untoward incidents arises as soon as the incident happens, and the extent of compensation is as prescribed by the Rules in force at the time of the incident. The court emphasized the importance of considering the Rules prescribed at the time of ordering payment of compensation and highlighted the delegation of determining fair and reasonable compensation to the Central Government through the Rules.

1. Leave granted.

2. "Misfortunes do not come single" is an old adage but even the author of that adage would not have imagined that multiplicity of misfortunes would visit the same person in a series on the same night, that too within the same hour. One may ask aghast, can destiny be so cruel to a damsel?

3. Rathi Menon, a Commerce graduate of 22 years, was thrown off from a running train during the night of a jinxed train journey as the consequence of a sudden jerk of the train. In the impact her spinal cord was ruptured and in a trice she turned a paraplegic. After she fell down, the wheels of the train ran over her right arm severing if from the shoulder point forever. The train, not knowing what it did to one of its lawful and innocent passengers, continued its running leaving the paraplegic on the track itself on that dreadful night.

4. It was physiologically impossible for the young lady to move her leg from the position where she fell. Her right leg happened to remain on the rail-track, and unless a good samaritan passed by that track during the night she would have to remain there unmoved. As none like that came, the poor female human being remained on the track bleeding and unattended by anyone.

5. Alas, within half an hour another train came along the same track which without knowing that a badly mauled human being was lying ahead, ran over her right leg causing a sudden amputation of that leg also. Thus, within the span of less than an hour, she became a one-handed and one-legged paraplegic.

6. All those disasters happened during the night of 3.9.1996. While she remained on the track unattended by anyone she happened to be spotted by an engine driver who was shunting a railway engine. He got her removed from that scene to the district hospital, and then to a Medical College Hospital where she had to undergo a long period of hospitalisation. However, she remained immovable forever.

7. Though she was unable to move by herself she was able to make two petitions before the Railway Claims Tribunal on 27.6.1997, in respect of the aforesaid two accidents. The Claims Tribunal awarded a total amount of six lakhs of rupees with the regret that it could not award more due to the ceiling imposed by the statutory Rules. However, the Claims Tribunal directed interest to accrue on the amount at the rate of 15% per annum from "the date of default".

8. The Railways Department, mindless as it was, dragged the helpless lady to the High Court of Kerala before which the Administration filed an appeal challenging the Award passed by the Claims Tribunal only on the ground that the amount awarded was excessive according to law of the Administration's interpretation.

9. The misfortune spree which was haunting the unfortunate lady bubbled up once again when a Division Bench of the High Court had chosen to slash down substantially the compensation amount awarded to her, on the premise that the amount granted by the Claims Tribunal could not have been awarded as the disaster had not visited her after 1.11.1997. The Division Bench expressed the helplessness of law in helping the hapless female in her misery of superlative dimension.

10. Though her body was disabled due to the paraplegia afflicted consequent to the rupture of the spinal cord, and though she became limbless in a major measure, she collected morale to approach the Apex Court to ask whether the limbs of law could be so stretched as to give the limbless girl solace at least in the form of pecuniary compensation. We, therefore, heard Mr. K. Sukumaran, learned senior Counsel for the appellant and Mrs. Rekha Pandey, learned Counsel for the Railway Administration.

11. There is no dispute on the factual position of which the following are some more details. Rathi Menon lost her father earlier, and her mother became a widow. She passed her degree in commerce and secured a job in Bangalore. In her early twenties she was in search of better career prospects and it earned some response. S