Ranchi: Jharkhand High Court said, while accepting the appeal filed by the family members of every person who died after falling from the train, regarding the increase in compensation, said that in compensation cases related to railway accidents, the claimants will receive compensation along with interest from the railway administration from the date of the incident till the payment.
Also, the court increased the simple interest from 6 to 9 % per year from the date of the accident to the date of payment. Pratima Devi had filed an appeal in the High Court under Section 23 of the Railway Claims Tribunal Act, 1987 (RCT Act).
The Appellants were dissatisfied with the order issued by the Railway Claims Tribunal. In the case of Shankha Nath Dubey’s death after accidentally falling from the train, the tribunal had ordered to pay a compensation amount of Rs 8 lakh to the appellants.
Apart from this, the tribunal had ordered payment of interest at the rate of 6% on the amount of Rs 8 lakh. For this, the date of March 17, 2021 was fixed. It was argued in the court on behalf of the Railways that the incident took place on 25/26 February 2018. But the case was filed in the tribunal on 2 August 2019. Therefore the Appellant is not entitled to interest from the date of occurrence.
While hearing the case, the court of High Court judge Justice Pradeep Kumar Srivastava said in its order that the tribunal has given the maximum amount of compensation as per the rules, but withheld interest from the date of the accident till the date of condonation of delay is not justified under the law.
Therefore the Appellants are entitled to simple interest at the rate of 9% per annum from the date of accident i.e. 25/26.02.2018 till the date of actual payment.