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Sh. Vijay Bahadur & Ors. vs. Union of India

First Appeal from Order · 2026:DHC:8984Decided 9 Oct 2026New Delhi Bench
FAO 205/2022CNR: DLHC010298022022
Justice Manoj Kumar Ohri

Background

A young man travelling home after a family festival was found dead on the tracks after apparently falling from his train, which had no scheduled stop at that location. His father's compensation claim was dismissed by the Railway Claims Tribunal, which doubted his bona fide passenger status because no ticket was found and the father couldn't recall the exact train number during cross-examination.

Decision Breakdown

The High Court held that the father's testimony about buying the ticket, combined with contemporaneous railway records linking the deceased to that specific train, was sufficient to establish bona fide passenger status despite minor gaps in his testimony. It found that the earliest records described an accidental fall, and a later departmental report alleging deliberate jumping, prepared well after the event, could not override that contemporaneous evidence. The Court set aside the dismissal and remanded the matter for computation of compensation.

Lesson Learnt

Courts favour a liberal, evidence-based approach to railway accident compensation claims, giving more weight to contemporaneous records over later departmental reports, and will not let technical gaps in a grieving relative's testimony defeat an otherwise genuine claim.

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