Mr. G.S. Sandhawalia, J. (Oral)- The present appeal, filed under Section 23 of the Railways Claims Tribunal Act, 1987, against the order of the Tribunal, Chandigarh Bench dated 27.02.2009, wherein the claim application of the appellant was dismissed qua the death of Malkeet Singh, who is the husband of appellant No.1 and father of appellants No.2 & 3.

2. The reasoning given by the Tribunal for rejecting the case is that the onus was on the respondent-Railways that the deceased was a ticket less traveler but contradictory evidence was produced on record. The respondent-Railways had been absolved in discharging its onus and the statement of Constable Surinder Singh regarding the two journey tickets from Rurki to Jalandhar City bearing No.63895 and 63896, which had been recovered, had not been mentioned in the recovery memo (Ext. A-8). The only recovery was of one identity card of one Ex-serviceman and nothing else was recovered. Same was also witnessed by Constable Surinder Singh and therefore, the subsequent recovery memo dated 10.01.2004 was held to be manipulated and not worth reliance. The tickets had not been placed on record and therefore, the conduct of Sham Singh-AW1, son was found strange that he had gone back to the village instead of looking for his father after alighting the train. Resultantly, the deceased was held not to be a bona fide passenger on the date of the incident and therefore, issue No.1 was decided against the claimants and resultantly, compensation was denied. Issue No.3 was, however, decided in favour of the claimants regarding the relationship and locus standi, as such, to file the petition.

3. The reasoning given by the Tribunal is not liable to be accepted, in view of the sequence of events, which would clearly go on to show that the deceased was a bona fide passenger who had boarded the train along with his son on 09.01.2004 from Rurki to Jalandhar and was involved in an untoward incident as his body was found at Sarai Banjara by the Trackman-Bandhan, RW1. The pleadings were very explicit in as much as in the claim petition itself, there was a reference of the two second class tickets from Rurki to Jalandhar and the incident which had taken place.

4. The defence of the Railways was that no untoward incident had taken place and the deceased was not a passenger on the train much less a bona fide passenger and it was a forged and fabricated story which was put-forth.

5. It is not disputed that on account of the body having been recovered on 10.01.2004 by Babdhan-RW1, who was working as a Gangman and was examined the deceased was alive at that point of time and was lying between the up-line and the loop-line of the Sarai Banjara Railway Station and Jagdish, Patrolman had remained at the spot while he went to inform the Station Master. It has also come on record by the statement of Janak Raj, Assistant Station Master who was examined as RW-3 that he was informed during his duty hours by Jagdish that one injured man was lying near West Cabin outside the track. He further deposed that he had requested the Control, who had advised him that the injured be taken in brake-van of Goods Train which was to come and pass from the station and the injured was lying between up-loop line and up-main line. To the Court question put by the Tribunal, he admitted that the train had scheduled stoppage at Sarai Banjara and the IUL passenger arrived at 0659 hours and departed at 0700 hours. The Patrolman had informed him at 0700 hours about the injured lying along side the Railway track and thus, the IUL had already passed at that moment and the possibility of the injured having fallen down from IUL could not be ruled out, although he volunteered that he was not sure about this fact.

6. From the record, it would be clear that an enquiry, as such, under Rule 7 of the Railway Passengers (Manner of Investigation of Untoward Incidents) Rules, 2003, was done regarding the incident by the DRM, which was forwarded to the De