The Delhi High Court has revived a railway compensation claim filed by a father whose son died after falling from an upper berth on a moving train, ruling that the incident could qualify as an “untoward incident” under the Railways Act, 1989. The court set aside the Railway Claims Tribunal’s decision rejecting the claim and directed it to reassess the compensation payable to the family.
A bench led by Justice Manoj Kumar Ohri found that a passenger’s accidental fall inside a moving train can fall within the scope of an untoward incident. The court said the law does not require the passenger to have fallen outside the train for the incident to qualify. The ruling came in an appeal filed by Shyam Singh, whose son Sanjeev Kumar died during a journey from Etawah to Agra Cantonment in 2015.
According to the case record cited in the report, Sanjeev Kumar and his father were travelling on Train No. 64157, the Etawah–Agra Cantonment shuttle, on 10 November 2015. They were carrying valid second-class tickets. When the train was nearing Agra Cantonment railway station, Sanjeev, who was sitting on an upper berth, reportedly fell after the train experienced a sudden jerk.
Sanjeev became unconscious after the fall. He was taken to a hospital, where a railway doctor declared him dead. A post-mortem examination was later conducted at the district hospital in Agra. The post-mortem report attributed the death to a heart attack, a finding that became central to the Railway Claims Tribunal’s rejection of the compensation claim.
The tribunal had held that the death was a natural one rather than the result of an untoward incident under railway law. The High Court, however, said the claim could not be rejected solely because the post-mortem report mentioned cardiac arrest. It noted that there was no document or medical evidence establishing that Sanjeev had a pre-existing heart condition.
The bench also considered railway records relating to the incident and found that they supported the account that Sanjeev had accidentally fallen inside the moving train. On that basis, the court returned the matter to the Railway Claims Tribunal for a fresh assessment of the compensation due to Shyam Singh.
The ruling does not itself specify the final compensation amount. Instead, it requires the tribunal to calculate and release the amount after reconsidering the claim. The High Court directed that the case be listed again before the tribunal on 30 September and ordered that the compensation assessment and payment be completed within two months.
The decision places the focus on how railway compensation law treats accidents that occur within a train, rather than only incidents involving passengers falling from a train. The next stage of the case will be the tribunal’s determination of the amount payable to the deceased passenger’s father.
