Orissa High Court
Pankaj Kumar Roul & Ors vs Union Of India on 10 October, 2025
Author: Sanjeeb K Panigrahi
Bench: Sanjeeb K Panigrahi
Signature Not Verified
Digitally Signed
Signed by: BHABAGRAHI JHANKAR
Reason: Authentication
Location: ORISSA HIGH COURT, CUTTACK
Date: 10-Oct-2025 17:50:14
IN THE HIGH COURT OF ORISSA AT CUTTACK
FAO No.161 of 2022
(An appeal under Section 23 of the Railways ClaimsTribunal Act, 1987)
Pankaj Kumar Roul & Ors. .... Appellant(s)
-versus-
Union of India .... Respondent (s)
Advocates appeared in the case through Hybrid Mode:
For Appellant (s) : Mr. Dhananjaya Mund, Adv.
For Respondent (s) : Mr. Satya Narayan Pattnaik,
Sr. Panel Counsel
CORAM:
DR. JUSTICE SANJEEB K PANIGRAHI
DATE OF HEARING:-19.09.2025
DATE OF JUDGMENT:-10.10.2025
Dr. Sanjeeb K Panigrahi, J.
1. In the present appeal, the Appellants challenge the judgment and order dated 01.11.2021 passed by the Railway Claims Tribunal, Bhubaneswar in Case No.O.A.(IIU)/12/2018, which dismissed the claim application for compensation arising out of the death alleged to have occurred in an 'untoward incident' within the meaning of Section 124A of the Railways Act, 1989.
I. FACTUAL MATRIX OF THE CASE:
2. The brief facts of the case are as follows:
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Location: ORISSA HIGH COURT, CUTTACK Date: 10-Oct-2025 17:50:14
(i) On 21.06.2016, the deceased Kamini Roul, a bona fide passenger holding a valid journey ticket, was travelling by the Bhubaneswar- Bhadrak DMU Passenger Train from Bhubaneswar to New Garh Railway Station. During the journey, she accidentally fell from the running train at KM No. 353/30-28, between New Garh Madhupur and Jenapur Railway Station, and died on the spot.
(ii) During the journey, the compartment was overcrowded. Due to sudden jerk caused by the application of brakes and the push and pull of fellow passengers, the deceased lost balance and accidentally fell from the running train between Madhupur - Jenapur Railway Station, resulting in death on the spot.
(iii) The appellants thereafter filed Original Application No. 12 of 2018 before the Railway Claims Tribunal, Bhubaneswar under Section 16 of the Railway Claims Tribunal Act, 1987, seeking compensation under Section 124A of the Railways Act, 1989 on account of the death of the deceased resulting from the untoward incident.
(iv) Based on the pleadings of the parties, the Learned Tribunal framed five issues for consideration. After detailed examination, it concluded that the deceased was not a bona fide passenger and not a victim any untoward incident. Accordingly, the claim application was dismissed.
(v) Being aggrieved by the judgment and order dated 01.11.2021 passed in the Original Application No. 12 of 2018 by the Railways Claims Tribunal, Bhubaneswar, the appellants have preferred the present appeal.
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Location: ORISSA HIGH COURT, CUTTACK Date: 10-Oct-2025 17:50:14 II. SUBMISSIONS ON BEHALF OF THE APPELLANTS:
3. Learned counsel for the Appellants earnestly made the following submissions in support of his contentions:
(i) The Appellants respectfully submits that the impugned judgment and order passed by the Learned Railway Claims Tribunal, Bhubaneswar, dismissing the Original Application in respect of the alleged untoward incident resulting in the death of the deceased is erroneous, contrary to the evidence on record, and suffers from gross misappreciation of material facts and legal provisions.
(ii) The Tribunal observed that no journey ticket was recovered from the deceased at the time of inquest, nor was any reference to such a ticket found in the contemporaneous police records. Based on this, the Tribunal held that the ticket relied upon by the appellants was likely to be fabricated and subsequently introduced during the proceedings.
Accordingly, the Learned Tribunal concluded that the deceased failed to prove her status as a bona fide passenger, as required under the Railways Act.
(iii) The Appellants have further submitted that the contemporaneous official records issued by the Police Authorities -- including the Inquest Report, Post-Mortem Report, and Final Investigation Report
-- constitute unimpeachable documentary evidence, all of which conclusively establish that the deceased succumbed to injuries sustained in an untoward incident occurring during the course of a lawful and bona fide train journey. It is further contended that the Learned Tribunal, while adjudicating the claim, failed to take judicial notice of such official documents, which carry a presumption of Page 3 of 17 Signature Not Verified Digitally Signed Signed by: BHABAGRAHI JHANKAR Reason: Authentication Location: ORISSA HIGH COURT, CUTTACK Date: 10-Oct-2025 17:50:14 correctness under Section 114(e) of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872. The Tribunal's omission to properly appreciate these evidentiary materials, and its consequent rejection of the claim on the conjectural premise that the death might have fallen within one of the exceptions enumerated under the proviso to Section 124A of the Railways Act, 1989, is a manifest misapplication of law. Such an approach not only disregards the remedial and welfare-oriented character of the legislation but also runs counter to the settled jurisprudence laid down by the Supreme Court in Union of India v. Prabhakaran Vijaya Kumar1 and Union of India v. Rina Devi2 wherein it has been categorically held that Section 124A embodies a regime of strict liability, admitting no exception save those expressly provided in the statute. The impugned findings, being contrary to the evidentiary record and the settled legal position, are therefore ex facie perverse, arbitrary, and unsustainable in the eye of law.
(iv) The Appellants have assailed the finding of the Learned Tribunal attributing the cause of death to be a suicidal act, contending that such a conclusion is founded solely on conjecture and surmise, unsupported by any credible evidence on record. This Court finds merit in the submission that the said inference is per se unsustainable in law, being contrary to both the evidentiary record and the settled principles governing proof of untoward incidents under Section 124A of the Railways Act. The testimony of Appellant No. 2, examined as A.W.1, clearly and unequivocally establishes that the deceased was a 1 (2008) 9 SCC 527 2 (2019) 3 SCC 572 Page 4 of 17 Signature Not Verified Digitally Signed Signed by: BHABAGRAHI JHANKAR Reason: Authentication Location: ORISSA HIGH COURT, CUTTACK Date: 10-Oct-2025 17:50:14 bona fide passenger, having personally witnessed him purchasing a valid journey ticket prior to commencement of the travel. In the absence of any cogent rebuttal by the Respondent-Indian Railways, the presumption in favour of bona fide passengership stands unrebutted. The Tribunal's finding, therefore, suffers from manifest perversity and non-application of mind, being devoid of legal and factual justification, and is consequently liable to be quashed and set aside.
(v) Section 124A of the Railways Act, 1989, being a salutary provision enacted in furtherance of the State's welfare mandate, engrafts within its ambit the doctrine of strict or no-fault liability, thereby statutorily fastening the Railway Administration with an absolute obligation to compensate the dependents of a deceased passenger whose death ensues from an untoward incident, save in circumstances expressly delineated within the proviso thereto -- none of which are attracted ex facie to the facts at hand. The provision, being inherently remedial and social-welfare oriented, commands a liberal and purposive interpretative approach, eschewing any pedantic or restrictive construction that may frustrate its beneficent object. Once the foundational facts establishing bona fide passengership and death consequent upon an untoward incident stand proved, the liability of the Railways arises ipso jure and operates automatically, divorced from considerations of fault, negligence, or mens rea. Any deviation from this statutory mandate would amount to a distortion of legislative intent and a subversion of the settled principles of welfare jurisprudence. The contrary finding of the Learned Tribunal, being Page 5 of 17 Signature Not Verified Digitally Signed Signed by: BHABAGRAHI JHANKAR Reason: Authentication Location: ORISSA HIGH COURT, CUTTACK Date: 10-Oct-2025 17:50:14 vitiated by manifest perversity, misdirection in law, and disregard of the statutory presumption embedded in Section 124A, is, therefore, unsustainable and warrants appellate interference. III. SUBMISSIONS ON BEHALF OF THE RESPONDENT:
4. On the contrary the Learned Counsel from the Respondent made the following submissions:
(i) In adjudications emanating under Section 124A of the Railways Act, 1989, the evidentiary onus at the threshold indubitably rests upon the claimant to establish, upon the touchstone of the preponderance of probabilities, the foundational or jurisdictional facts necessary to trigger the statutory presumption of liability -- namely, that the deceased was a bona fide passenger and that the fatality in question was occasioned by an untoward incident within the statutory contemplation of Section 123(c)(2) of the Act. The discharge of this evidentiary burden is a sine qua non to the invocation of the remedial jurisdiction under the said provision. In the present cause, the Appellants have manifestly fallen short of satisfying this requirement.
(ii) A meticulous scrutiny of the contemporaneous documentary corpus and the surrounding factual matrix militates against the hypothesis of an accidental fall from a moving train and, contrarily, yields a preponderant inference of a self-inflicted or suicidal run-over.
Such conduct, being ex facie subsumed within the exclusionary ambit of clause (a) of the proviso to Section 124A, is statutorily immunized from the operation of the rule of strict liability that otherwise attaches under the main provision. Ergo, the occurrence in question cannot, Page 6 of 17 Signature Not Verified Digitally Signed Signed by: BHABAGRAHI JHANKAR Reason: Authentication Location: ORISSA HIGH COURT, CUTTACK Date: 10-Oct-2025 17:50:14 either de jure or de facto, be subsumed within the definitional ambit of an "untoward incident" as envisaged under the Act. Consequently, no compensatory liability can, in law, be fastened upon the Respondent-Railway Administration, the claim being barred by the express legislative exclusion engrafted in the statutory scheme.
(iii) The Learned Tribunal has, in the considered exercise of its fact- finding jurisdiction, rightly discredited and discarded the testimony of A.W.2, Natabar Behera, upon a reasoned appreciation of the evidentiary record. The Tribunal correctly noted that the witness's deposition was replete with material inconsistencies and embellishments, and appeared to be actuated by extraneous considerations and mala fide intent, ostensibly with the object of facilitating or fortifying a claim for compensation. In the absence of corroborative material to lend credence to his version, the testimony of A.W.2 could not be accorded any probative sanctity or evidentiary weight. The Tribunal, therefore, justifiably concluded that such evidence, being tainted by apparent motivation and lacking in veracity, was unworthy of reliance either in fact or in law.
(iv) The Learned Tribunal, upon a scrupulous appraisal of the post- mortem report and attendant medico-legal materials, observed that the medical opinion attributed the cause of death to "craniocerebral injury due to dashing of head by running train." Proceeding from this forensic premise, the Tribunal engaged in inferential reasoning to conclude that the deceased was, in all probability, either knocked down by a moving train while unlawfully traversing or loitering upon the railway track, or that the fatality was self-inflicted, indicative of a Page 7 of 17 Signature Not Verified Digitally Signed Signed by: BHABAGRAHI JHANKAR Reason: Authentication Location: ORISSA HIGH COURT, CUTTACK Date: 10-Oct-2025 17:50:14 suicidal act -- a conclusion further reinforced by the proximity of the deceased's residence to the place of occurrence. These inferred possibilities, in the Tribunal's view, were irreconcilable with the appellants' narrative of an accidental fall from a running train. Consequently, the Tribunal has held that the death does not fall within the definitional ambit of an "untoward incident" as contemplated under Section 123(c)(2) of the Railways Act, 1989. The medico-legal findings, when read conjointly with the surrounding factual matrix, were thus treated as possessing determinative probative value, forming the substratum of the Tribunal's conclusion that the claim was statutorily excluded from the purview of Section 124A, and that no compensatory liability could, therefore, be fastened on the Railway Administration.
(v) The Appellants have failed to discharge the foundational burden of establishing that the deceased was a bona fide passenger travelling under the authority of a valid journey ticket at that point in time. The inquest report and other contemporaneous investigative documents unmistakably reveal that no travel ticket was recovered from the person or effects of the deceased, thereby eroding the evidentiary substratum of the claim. The Respondents have further urged, with persuasive force, that there was no contemporaneous record or report of Alarm Chain Pulling following the alleged fall, which circumstance materially undermines the appellants' narrative and casts serious doubt upon the authenticity of the claim. In the absence of any cogent, credible, or corroborative evidence establishing bona fide passengership, the indispensable precondition for the invocation of Page 8 of 17 Signature Not Verified Digitally Signed Signed by: BHABAGRAHI JHANKAR Reason: Authentication Location: ORISSA HIGH COURT, CUTTACK Date: 10-Oct-2025 17:50:14 statutory liability under Section 124A of the Railways Act, 1989 remains unfulfilled. The claim, thus bereft of the requisite factual and legal foundation, stands rendered unsustainable and non- maintainable within the statutory framework, as the sine qua non for attracting the principle of strict liability is conspicuously absent. IV. FINDINGS OF THE TRIBUNAL:
5. The Railway Claims Tribunal, Bhubaneswar Bench heard the parties, perused the documents on record, and upon the basis of the pleadings framed five issues for consideration.
6. On Issues 1, 2 and 3, which were taken up together, the Tribunal observed that the initial burden lay upon the applicants to prove that the deceased was a bona fide passenger and that her death resulted from an "untoward incident" as defined under Section 123(c)(2) read with Section 124A of the Railways Act, 1989. The Tribunal found that the journey ticket was not produced or found, which weighed against establishing the deceased's status as a bona fide passenger.
7. It is further noted that the statutory investigation report and the post-
mortem report both indicates that the cause of death was due to the head being dashed by a running train as result of trespassing. The reports suggests that this scenario is inconsistent with the death of a passenger falling from a running train and point instead to the possibility of a suicidal death.
8. The Tribunal held that such circumstances does not demonstrate the accidental fall from the train, and therefore the occurrence was not an "untoward incident". Such is sine qua non of compensation under Section 124A had not been established. It is accordingly held that the deceased Page 9 of 17 Signature Not Verified Digitally Signed Signed by: BHABAGRAHI JHANKAR Reason: Authentication Location: ORISSA HIGH COURT, CUTTACK Date: 10-Oct-2025 17:50:14 was not a bona fide passenger, that the incident was not an "untoward incident", and that Railways stood protected under the exception clause of Section 124A of the Act.
9. Consequently, Issues 1, 2 and 3 were answered against the applicants. In view of such findings, the Tribunal considered it unnecessary to examine Issues 4 and 5 relating to dependency and relief. The claim application was thus dismissed.
V. COURT'S REASONING AND ANALYSIS:
10. Heard Learned Counsel for parties and perused the documents placed before this Court.
11. The central questions that arise for consideration are:
(i) whether the deceased was a bona fide passenger?
(ii) whether the incident amounts to an 'untoward incident' within the meaning of Section 123(c)(2) read with Section 124A of the Railways Act, 1989?
(iii) whether the Railway Administration stands absolved of liability by reason of any exceptions under Section 124A?
12. The Appellants have manifestly failed to discharge the foundational burden incumbent upon them to establish that the deceased was a bona fide passenger travelling under the authority of a valid journey ticket at the material point of time. The inquest proceedings, coupled with other contemporaneous investigative records, unequivocally reveal that no journey ticket was recovered from the person or effects of the deceased, thereby vitiating the evidentiary substratum upon which the claim seeks to repose. The Respondents have further contended -- and not without Page 10 of 17 Signature Not Verified Digitally Signed Signed by: BHABAGRAHI JHANKAR Reason: Authentication Location: ORISSA HIGH COURT, CUTTACK Date: 10-Oct-2025 17:50:14 juridical plausibility -- that there exists no contemporaneous record or report of Alarm Chain Pulling or any ancillary circumstance indicative of an accidental fall, which omission materially debilitates the evidentiary coherence of the appellants' narrative and fortifies the inference of embellishment or fabrication. In the absence of any cogent, consistent, or corroborative material establishing bona fide passengership, the indispensable factual substratum for the invocation of statutory liability under Section 124A of the Railways Act, 1989 stands unsubstantiated. The claim, thus bereft of its evidentiary and legal moorings, is rendered unsustainable in limine and non-maintainable within the contours of the statutory scheme, for attraction of the doctrine of strict liability remains conspicuously unfulfilled.
13. At the very threshold, it becomes necessary to delineate the statutory architecture that governs the field of liability under the Railways Act, 1989. Section 124A of the Act incorporates within its fold the doctrine of strict or no-fault liability, thereby dispensing with the requirement of proving negligence, wrongful act, or default as a precondition to the accrual of compensatory entitlement. The provision, in clear and unambiguous terms, mandates that once it stands established that the death or injury in question has ensued from an "untoward incident" as defined under Section 123(c) of the Act, the Railway Administration becomes statutorily bound to pay compensation to the victim or to the legal heirs of the deceased passenger. The legislative intent underlying this provision is manifestly remedial and welfare-oriented, aimed at ensuring certainty and uniformity in compensation for victims of railway mishaps. The liability so created is absolute in character, admitting of Page 11 of 17 Signature Not Verified Digitally Signed Signed by: BHABAGRAHI JHANKAR Reason: Authentication Location: ORISSA HIGH COURT, CUTTACK Date: 10-Oct-2025 17:50:14 exception only to the extent expressly carved out in the proviso to Section 124A -- which, being in the nature of an exclusionary clause, is to be construed narrowly and restrictively.
14. On the issue of bona fide passengership, this Court is constrained to observe that the Ld. Tribunal fell into a manifest error of both law and appreciation of evidence in placing disproportionate reliance upon the non-recovery of the journey ticket from the person of the deceased, thereby drawing an adverse inference wholly unsupported by the evidentiary record. The conclusion that the deceased was not a bona fide passenger rests upon a misdirection as to the nature of the claimant's evidentiary burden under Section 124A of the Railways Act, 1989, and an unduly restrictive construction of the statutory scheme intended to confer the benefit of no-fault compensation.
15. Upon a meticulous reappraisal of the record, this Court is satisfied that the bona fide passengership of the deceased stands duly established. The inquest report and the post-mortem report--being contemporaneous, official documents prepared in the ordinary course of public duty--carry a presumption of correctness under Section 114(e) of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872, and corroborate the surrounding circumstances indicative of lawful travel and the occurrence of the incident during a train journey. The cumulative probative effect of these materials leaves no manner of doubt that the deceased was travelling as a bona fide passenger at the relevant time. Accordingly, the finding of the Tribunal to the contrary, being vitiated by a misappreciation of evidence and a misapplication of the governing legal principles, is held to be perverse and unsustainable in law.
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16. In view of the settled legal position, once the bona fide status of the deceased is established by credible, cogent, and contemporaneous evidence, the statutory liability of the Railway Administration to compensate under Section 124A of the Railways Act, 1989 stands automatically attracted and becomes enforceable ipso jure. The jurisprudence on the subject is now well crystallised that mere non- recovery or absence of a journey ticket at the time of inquest cannot, in isolation, defeat or vitiate an otherwise legitimate and substantiated claim, particularly when other reliable materials -- such as the inquest report, post-mortem report, and investigative records -- affirm the deceased's lawful presence on the train and the occurrence of an untoward incident during the course of travel. The statutory presumption in favour of the claimant, being anchored in the welfare-oriented and remedial purpose of the legislation, cannot be displaced on the basis of conjectural reasoning or negative inferences drawn from procedural lapses. Any contrary approach would undermine the beneficial intent of the statute and frustrate the legislative object of ensuring prompt and equitable compensation to victims or their dependents.
17. Reliance may be placed on the decision of the Supreme Court of India in Doli Rani Saha v. Union of India3, wherein it was categorically held that the initial burden of proof under Section 124A of the Railways Act, 1989 lies upon the claimant, which may be satisfactorily discharged by filing an affidavit setting out the relevant and material facts. Upon such discharge, the evidentiary burden shifts to the Railway Administration to 3 2024 INSC 603 Page 13 of 17 Signature Not Verified Digitally Signed Signed by: BHABAGRAHI JHANKAR Reason: Authentication Location: ORISSA HIGH COURT, CUTTACK Date: 10-Oct-2025 17:50:14 rebut or disprove the claim by adducing cogent and credible evidence. The Court further emphasised that the mere non-recovery of a journey ticket at the time of inquest cannot, in itself, constitute a valid ground to disbelieve the claimant's case or to negate the plea of bona fide passengership, particularly when the surrounding circumstances and official records corroborate lawful travel and the occurrence of an untoward incident.
18. Similar principles have been reiterated by the Supreme Court in Union of India v. Rina Dev4 , wherein it was held that Section 124A of the Railways Act, 1989 embodies a statutory regime of strict liability and mandates payment of compensation in the event of death or injury arising from an untoward incident, irrespective of any wrongful act, negligence, or fault on the part of the Railway Administration. The Court underscored that the beneficial object of the legislation must guide its interpretation and that the rights of passengers or their dependents to compensation cannot be defeated by technicalities or conjectural reasoning unsupported by evidence.
19. In the present case, although the Applicants were unable to produce the journey ticket, having evidently lost it in the course of the incident, the evidentiary corpus, viewed cumulatively, unequivocally substantiates the plea of bona fide passengership and the occurrence of an untoward incident. The inquest report, post-mortem report, and final investigation report--each a contemporaneous official record prepared in the ordinary course of public duty--uniformly attest that the deceased met his death 4 (2019) 3 SCC 572 Page 14 of 17 Signature Not Verified Digitally Signed Signed by: BHABAGRAHI JHANKAR Reason: Authentication Location: ORISSA HIGH COURT, CUTTACK Date: 10-Oct-2025 17:50:14 from an accidental fall from a running train. These documents, carrying a presumption of regularity under Section 114(e) of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872, lend compelling corroboration to the Applicants' version. The testimony of A.W.2 further affirms that the deceased had purchased a valid journey ticket prior to boarding, an assertion corroborated by both oral and documentary evidence. Collectively, this evidentiary matrix constitutes credible and cogent proof, firmly establishing that the death occurred in the course of lawful travel and squarely falls within the definition of an "untoward incident" under Section 123(c)(2) of the Railways Act, 1989.
20. Per contra, the Respondents have failed to adduce any cogent, credible, or legally tenable evidence capable of displacing the evidentiary foundation of the Applicants' case. Their reliance upon the speculative and inferential observations contained in the DRM's inquiry report is wholly misconceived in law, such reports being merely administrative fact-finding exercises undertaken post facto and devoid of binding probative value within the adjudicatory framework. In the absence of any substantive or persuasive rebuttal from the Respondents, and having regard to the coherent, corroborated, and contemporaneous evidentiary material adduced by the Applicants, this Court is persuaded to hold that the deceased's status as a bona fide passenger and the occurrence of an untoward incident stand firmly and conclusively established. The statutory liability of the Railway Administration under Section 124A of the Railways Act, 1989 thus stands irresistibly attracted, entitling the claimants to just compensation as contemplated under the benevolent legislative scheme.
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21. The legal position stands firmly crystallised in Union of India v.
Prabhakaran Vijaya Kumar5, wherein the Supreme Court authoritatively held that the provisions for compensation under the Railways Act, 1989 constitute a piece of beneficial and welfare legislation, and therefore warrant a liberal and purposive interpretation consistent with the legislative intent to afford relief to victims of railway accidents. The Court unequivocally observed that to construe the expression "accidental falling of a passenger from a train carrying passengers" under Section 123(c) of the Act in a narrow or restrictive sense would defeat the object of the legislation and unjustly deprive numerous bona fide passengers of their rightful entitlement to compensation.
22. Applying this settled principle to the present case, the incident in question squarely falls within the ambit of an "untoward incident" as contemplated under Section 123(c)(2) of the Railways Act, 1989. None of the statutory exceptions enumerated in the proviso to Section 124A stand attracted in the factual matrix of this case. Consequently, the statutory liability of the Railway Administration is ipso facto attracted, and the claim for compensation is legally maintainable within the framework of strict liability envisaged by the Act.
VI. CONCLUSION:
23. Upon an exhaustive appraisal of the evidentiary matrix and the statutory scheme, this Court is satisfied that the Appellants have discharged the requisite burden of establishing that the deceased was a bona fide passenger and that his demise resulted from an "untoward incident" 5
(2008) 9 SCC 527 Page 16 of 17 Signature Not Verified Digitally Signed Signed by: BHABAGRAHI JHANKAR Reason: Authentication Location: ORISSA HIGH COURT, CUTTACK Date: 10-Oct-2025 17:50:14 within the ambit of Section 123(c)(2), read with Section 124A of the Railways Act, 1989. None of the exclusionary contingencies contemplated under the proviso to Section 124A stand attracted in the present factual conspectus. The corollary that ensues is that the statutory liability of the Railway Administration, operating under the regime of strict liability, stands incontrovertibly invoked.
24. Ergo, the impugned judgment and order dated 01.11.2021, rendered by the Railway Claims Tribunal, Bhubaneswar in Original Application No.12 of 2018, are hereby quashed and set aside. The appeal consequently succeeds, the claim is held to be maintainable in law, and the Respondent- Union of India (Railways) stands statutorily obligated to pay compensation to the Appellants in conformity with Section 124A of the Railways Act, 1989, together with interest as permissible under law.
25. The appeal is, therefore, allowed.
26. The appellants are entitled to compensation of Rs.8,00,000/- (Rupees eight lakhs) with interest at 6% per annum from the date of filing of the claim application until payment. The respondent Railways shall deposit the amount before the Tribunal within three months, whereupon it shall be disbursed to the appellants in accordance with law.
27. Interim order, if any, passed earlier stands vacated.
(Dr. Sanjeeb K Panigrahi) Judge Orissa High Court, Cuttack, Dated the 10th Oct., 2025 Page 17 of 17