Supreme Court restores railway accident compensation, saying a missing ticket cannot defeat a passenger's claim
The question: Can compensation under Section 124-A of the Railways Act, 1989 be denied only because the victim's ticket was not found or produced?
The Supreme Court on 25 September 2026 restored a Rs 8 lakh compensation award to the parents of a man who fell from a train and died of his injuries. A bench of Justices Ujjal Bhuyan and Atul S. Chandurkar (judgment by Justice Chandurkar) held that the Gujarat High Court was wrong to reverse the award only because no ticket was produced. It held that the claimants' sworn statement shifted the burden to the Railways, which failed to discharge it, and that the Railways' delayed investigation report could not be used against the claimants. The man was travelling to Surat via Ahmedabad in the general compartment of a train on 27 September 2017 when he fell between Sabarmati and Ahmedabad stations. He was taken to hospital and died on 31 October 2017. His parents applied to the Railway Claims Tribunal under Section 16 of the Railway Claims Tribunal Act, 1987, saying he had a valid ticket which was lost. On 17 June 2022 the Tribunal held that he was a bona fide passenger who had met an 'untoward incident' and awarded Rs 8 lakh with interest at 9 per cent per annum from the date of the incident till the date of the order. The Union of India appealed under Section 23 of the Act. On 15 July 2025 a Single Judge of the Gujarat High Court allowed the appeal, holding that there was no evidence of the fall from the train and that the incident could therefore not be called an 'untoward incident' as defined in Section 123(c)(2) of the Railways Act, 1989. He relied principally on the claimants' failure to disclose details of the train and on the absence of a ticket. The parents appealed to the Supreme Court.