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‘Hyper technical reasons not sustainable in the eyes of law': Karnataka HC awards compensation for minor's death in 2012 train accident
The Karnataka High Court on May 2 ordered the payment of compensation for the death of a minor who fell off a train in 2012 in Karnataka, observing that the original dismissal of the claim for technical reasons was not correct.
The order, which was passed by a bench consisting of Justice Hanchate Sanjeevkuma, was made available this week.
The minor and his cousin had purchased a train ticket from Raichur to Yeshwantpur in 2012. After crossing the Dharmavaram station, the deceased fell off the train while washing his hands at a washbasin, sustaining fatal injuries.
The Railway Claims Tribunal had dismissed the claim of the victim's family members because while an eight-year-old had died in the accident, different papers mentioned the age as 8 or 20 years, raising doubts whether it was the same person. The Tribunal also questioned the discrepancies in the mention of the time of the accident.
The Karnataka High Court disagreed with this reasoning, observing that the complaint, First Information Report (FIR), postmortem report, witness statements etc, all established that the deceased was eight years old. The bench stated, 'There may be some discrepancies in mentioning the age of the deceased as 8 to 20 years, but this discrepancy shall not be exaggerated so as to reject the claim petition.'
The court also disagreed with the 'hyper-technical' reasoning applied in the earlier decision. 'The reason assigned by the Tribunal is so trivial, which absolutely could not be accepted. The claim petition is dismissed with all its possible hyper-technical reasons which are not sustainable in the eyes of law. When all the evidence on record placed before the trial Court conclusively proves the fact that the deceased died in the accident, but only on a hyper-technical reason, dismissing the claim petition is absolutely not correct.'
After making these observations, the court ordered the payment of Rs 400,000 calculated at 8 per cent interest per annum. The court added that if the amount stood less than Rs 800,000, then that would be the sum of compensation instead.
