Indian Railway News: An elderly couple was traveling by railway. He also had a ticket. Nevertheless TC imposed a fine of Rs 22,300 on him. The couple’s son fought a legal battle in the consumer court and won it. For this mistake, the Railways had to pay a heavy fine i.e. a compensation of Rs 40 thousand.
New Delhi. The court took a strong stand in the case of imposing a fine of Rs 22,300 on an elderly couple from Bengaluru under “travelling without ticket” despite having confirmed first class AC tickets of Rajdhani Express. The consumer court has ordered the Railways to give Rs 40 thousand as compensation to the couple. A man named Alok Kumar had booked this ticket for his 77-year-old father and 71-year-old mother, but on March 21, 2022, the journey turned into a painful experience for the elderly couple. Actually, what happened was that the ticket examiner (TC) checked his PNR number and said that its status was “No Room” for confirmed tickets.
According to Times of India news, when the son came to know about it, he lodged a complaint with IRCTC and contacted South Western Railway (SWR) officials, but he did not get any response. After this, he approached a consumer court in Bengaluru complaining of lapses against the Chief Booking Officer of South-Western Railways and IRCTC officials.
What did the consumer court say?
While IRCTC claimed that it is only an online ticketing platform for passengers and is not involved in imposing fine on passengers, SWR officials failed to appear in the court despite being served legal notice. After which the consumer court ordered to pay Rs 30,000 as compensation to Kumar’s parents for the harassment. Besides, an order was given to return the fine amount and pay Rs 10,000 as the expenses of Kumar’s case.
In a separate incident, an Indian Railways passenger has shared a video of an AC first class compartment filled with ticketless passengers, questioning the point of paying extra for AC first class when there are ticketless passengers anyway. Crowding of coaches causes inconvenience to paying customers.
