JUDGMENT :

Pankaj Jain, J.

The appeal is at the behest of the claimant seeking compensation from Railways on account of death due to untoward incident. Chapter XIII of the Railways Act, 1989 (hereinafter referred to as the '1989 Act') deals with the liability of Railway Administration to pay compensation on account of death of passengers and injury to the passengers due to accidents and untoward incidents.

2. Claimant filed claim application pleading that on 12.07.2013 the deceased Satnam Singh went to Kishangarh railway station and purchased the ticket of Rs.190/- and boarded the train from Punjab side. The deceased accidentally fell down from the running train at Chawa Railway Station yard due to jerk and jolt of the train, received multiple injuries. The deceased was later taken in injured condition to civil hospital where he died.

3. Claim was resisted by the railways claiming that the incident does not fall under the provisions of Section 123(c)(2) read with Section 124A of the Railways Act and that the deceased was not a bonafide passenger being not in possession of a valid railway ticket.

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

(i) whether the deceased was a bona fide passenger or not?

(ii) Whether the death occurred on account of untoward incident?

5. Tribunal on the first issue found that the deceased was not a bona fide passenger. While referring to the pleadings, Tribunal recorded that it has been mentioned in the pleadings that the deceased boarded the train from Punjab side in the afternoon at about 2.00 PM and nothing was said about the destination of the journey of Satnam Singh. The finding is perverse being against the pleadings. The claim petition specifically mentions at Item No.7(A) as under:

7-A. Journey : From Railway Station Kishangarh (Rajashtan) to Jalandhar

6. Counsel for the appellant submits that the Tribunal has totally misread the evidence on record. AW-1 the claimant as well as AW-2 Kulwinder Singh who accompanied the deceased up to the railway station specifically tendered their affidavit that the deceased boarded train after purchasing ticket.

6. Learned counsel for the railways, however, submits that in the absence of there being any railway ticket brought on record by the claimant, no fault can be found with the findings recorded by the Tribunal.

7. I have heard counsel for the parties and have gone through records of the case.

8. Section 124A deals with compensation on account of untoward incident. The said provision came on the statute by way of Railways Amendment Act, 28 of 1994. Supreme Court in the case of Rathi Menon vs. Union of India (2001) 3 SCC 714 spelling out the purpose and the import of the provision observed as under:

'13. Appellant's claim for the compensation was based on Section 124A of the Railways Act, 1989 (for short "the Act"). The said Section itself was introduced as per Railway (Amendment) Act 28 of 1994. The Section provided for awarding compensation to victims of any "untoward incident" which occurs in the course of working of a railway. The expression "untoward incident" was alien to Railway Act before Parliament inserted such an expression in the statute as per the Amendment Act 28 of 1994. Prior to it the Railways could have granted compensation only to the victims of "Accident". As the definition of accident in the Act did not embrace instances of other types of disasters which frequently happened during train journeys, the Parliament in its wisdom, decision to insert a new category of disasters, both man-made and otherwise, to be the causes of action for claiming compensation.

14. It was in compliance of the aforesaid intention of the Parliament that the category "untoward incident" was included by defining its contours in section 123 of the Act. The Sections consists of two segments. In the first segment acts such as terrorists acts, riotous attacks, robbery and decoity which visit the passengers in the train as well as those who wait within the preci