Judgment

Mr. Karamjit Singh, J.

The present appeal has been filed by the appellants/claimants against the order of the Railway Claims Tribunal, Chandigarh Bench (in short ‘The Tribunal’) dated 3.6.2015, whereby the claim petition filed by the appellants being dependents of deceased Krishana Ram, has been dismissed.

2. The brief facts of the case of the appellants are that deceased Krishna Ram was husband of appellant No.1-Sunaina @ Kanti while appellants No.2 to 4 are his children. That on 13.11.2012, the deceased along with his wife and appellants No.3 and 4 went to Ambala Cantt. To board a train to Mokama Junction and seats for his wife son and daughter were already reserved in the sleeper class. That the deceased purchased a general ticket for himself. There was a great rush at platform as most of the passengers were going to their native place to celebrate Chhatt festival. The deceased helped his family members to enter the reserved sleeper coach and himself boarded the general compartment adjourning to sleeper coach. When the train reached in between Ambala Cantt. and Dukheri, due to sudden jerk given by the train, the deceased fell down and sustained multiple injuries and died at the spot. On 14.11.2012 wife and children de-boarded the train on reaching their destination i.e. Mukama Station and then they came to know about the aforesaid untoward incident and they informed the same to the police and the local police after getting information of the incident came into action and the dead body was recovered and sent for its post-mortem examination and the articles recovered from the dead body were taken into possession by the police. The appellants being dependents of the deceased filed claim application before the Tribunal.

3. On notice, the claim application was contested by respondent, who filed written statement. The respondent denied happening of any untoward incident as alleged by the appellants. It was also denied that the deceased was travelling in a train when the alleged incident took place. It was further pleaded that the deceased was not bona fide passenger as no journey ticket was recovered from the dead body. It was pleaded that the claim application be dismissed.

4. On the pleadings of the parties, following issues were framed:-

i. Whether the deceased was a bona fide passenger at the time of incident?

ii. Whether all alleged incident is covered within the ambit of Section 123(c)(2) read with Section 124-A of the RAILWAYS ACT ?

iii. Whether the applicant(s) is/are the sole dependents(s) of the deceased?

iv. Relief.

5. The appellants led evidence and examined AW-1 Jai Prakash son of deceased, AW-2 Sarovar another son of deceased. The appellants also placed on record inquest report Ex.A-1, post-mortem report Ex.A-2, memo of jamatalashi Ex.A-3, memo regarding production of railway ticket Ex.A-4, Railway ticket Ex.A-5, Railway station memo to GRP Ex.A-7 and receipt of dead body Ex.A-8 and documents Ex.A-9 to Ex.A-20.

6. On the other hand respondent examined RW-1 Satpal Station Master Barara and also produced inquiry report of DRM Ex.R-1 and some other documents.

7. After hearing the counsel for the parties the Tribunal decided issues No.1 and 2 against the appellants and consequently did not record any findings regarding issue No.3 and resultantly dismissed the claim application.

8. The Tribunal while passing the impugned order, gave its findings that the appellants failed to discharge the initial burden to show that the deceased was a bona fide passenger. The Tribunal further observed that no journey ticket was found from the dead body or from nearby the spot of i