A consumer dispute resolution commission in India has ordered the Indian Railway to pay a senior citizen Rs 1 lakh after he was denied a berth despite possessing a reservation. The General Manager of East Central Railway was ordered to pay the amount to the complainant, Inder Nath Jha, who was denied a berth during his journey from Darbhanga, Bihar, to Delhi in February 2008.

A bench comprising commission’s president Monika Srivastava and members Rashmi Bansal and Dr Rajender Dhar said that people take reservations in advance in the expectation of a comfortable and easy journey. Still, the complainant, despite taking a reservation a month prior to the date of the journey, had a terrible journey and faced hardship and suffered humiliation, trauma, and anguish.

Jha had acted in a responsible manner right from getting the reservation in the year 2008 till approaching the authorities for doing justice in a lawful manner, it noted.

“At the same time, no prudent person would believe that a passenger, more so, a senior citizen, would take so much trouble, including fighting a pricey legal battle, for the sake of making a quick buck, as alleged by opposite parties,” the commission said in an order.

According to the complaint, the train officials sold his confirmed ticket to someone else. It claimed that the complainant waited for the Travelling Ticket Examiner (TTE) to come, and on his arrival, he confronted him about the ticket.

The TTE then informed the complainant that his seat in the sleeper class was upgraded to an air-conditioned one; however, when Jha reached there, that berth too was not given to him by the train officials.

As a result, the complainant had to travel the entire journey in a standing position, the complaint said.

The railway officials opposed the complaint and claimed that there was no deficiency on their part, contending that the complainant did not board the train at the boarding point and turned up five hours late at another station and the TTE rightly presumed that he had not boarded and allocated his seat to waiting for the passenger as per rules.

In its order, the commission, however, noted that the sleeper class TTE had informed his counterpart in the air-conditioned one that the passenger had boarded the train and would reach there later.

“Despite having a reservation in his name, the Complainant could not get any berth and travelled without a berth or any seat. Even otherwise, a passenger has the right to occupy his reserved berth without any further formalities, and here, when the berth has been upgraded by the respondent, the complainant should have been given the same,” the commission said.

It said there was negligence on the part of railways in not informing the complainant about his up-gradation of berth because of which he did not get any of the berths despite reservation a month prior to his travelling date.

The Railway Upgradation scheme proved to the disadvantage of the complainant instead of providing him with a more conformable journey, it said.

It said that considering the facts, it is clear that the railway authority, which was rendering service, had not taken any action for providing berth to the complainant for which he was a rightful occupier. “It was certainly a gross deficiency in service,” the commission said.