Pankaj Kataria & Ors. v. Union of India

1. This judgment shall decide the present appeal filed by the appellant/claimant under Section 231 of the Railway Claims Tribunal Act, 1987[2] assailing the Impugned Order dated 17.07.2014 passed by the Railway Claims Tribunal, Principal Bench, Delhi[3], whereby the claim application O.A. (IIu) No. 233/2013[4] titled as „Sh. Pankaj Kataria Vs. Union of India‟, filed under Section 16 read with Section 13 (1A) of the RCT Act, was dismissed.

FACTUAL BACKGROUND:

2. Briefly stated, it was the case of the appellant / claimant that on 04.05.2013, Smt. Madhu Kataria (deceased herein) aged 58 years,

23. Appeals.—(1) Save as provided in sub-section (2) and notwithstanding anything contained in the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 (5of1908) or in any other law, an appeal shall lie from every order, not being an interlocutory order, of the Claims Tribunal, to the High Court having jurisdiction over the place where the Bench is located. (2) No appeal shall lie from an order passed by the Claims Tribunal with the consent of the parties. (3) Every appeal under this section shall be preferred within a period of ninety days from the date of the order appealed against. RCT Act boarded the train to travel from Ferozepur Cantt. to Shakurbasti on a reserved ticket bearing No. 37065621 purchased for Rs. 494/- in Punjab Mail train No. 12138 with PNR No. 2446962413. On 05.05.2013, at about 4:30A.M., when the train reached near Shakurbasti railway station, the deceased went to the toilet and came back to wash her hands at the sink near the gate of the train compartment. Suddenly, there was a jerk in the train due to which the deceased fell down from the train and received grievous injuries all over the body and subsequently, died on the spot. The deceased was rushed to Aruna Asaf Ali government hospital, mortuary, Subzi Mandi, Delhi vide PMR No. 681/13 on 06.05.2013, but she died. FIR bearing DD No. 4-A dated 05.05.2013 was registered at PS Sarai Rohilla Railway Police Station, Delhi. As a result, the appellant (who claims to be the son of the deceased) filed a claim petition No.O.A.(IIu) 233/2013 on 28.10.2013 seeking statutory compensation of Rs. 4,00,000/- from the respondent railways.

PROCEEDINGS BEFORE THE RCT AND IMPUGNED ORDER:

3. During the course of proceedings before the learned RCT, counsel for the respondent raised the issue of “adoption” contending that adoption is not within the meaning of the term “dependant” as defined under Section 123(b) of the Railways Act 1989[5] and that there is no evidence on record to prove that Pankaj Kataria/appellant was officially adopted as a son of the deceased. The appellant, on the other hand, contended that they have filed all the documents including the

4 Claim Application Will by the deceased dated 28.01.2014 and that the respondent filed their written statements without any documents or any DRM (Divisional Railway Manager) report. In this regard, Section 123(b) of RA reads: “Section 123(b) - “dependant‟ means any of the following relatives of a deceased passenger, namely:- (1) the wife, husband, son and daughter, and in case the deceased passenger is unmarried or is a minor, his parent: (2) the parent, minor brother or unmarried sister, widowed sister, widowed daughter-in-law and a minor child or a predeceased son, if dependent wholly or partly on; the deceased passenger: (3) a minor child of a pre-deceased daughter, if wholly dependent on the deceased passenger: (4) the paternal grand parent wholly dependent on the deceased passenger.”

4. The appellant further contended that the deceased died as a spinster and adopted him as her son and that the deceased is not survived by any other dependants except him. The learned RCT, on the other hand, was in agreement with the submissions made by the respondent in this regard. The relevant observations have been reproduced below:

5. On the basis of the preceding observations, the learned RCT dismissed the claim application of the appellant/Pankaj Kataria in terms of Rule 16 of the Railway Claims Tribunal (Procedure) Rules,

1989.

6. The impugned order has been assailed inter alia on the grounds that the appellant, though nephew of the deceased, was adopted as a son and acted on her (deceased) as son/ nominee/ successor in bank and the tribunal ought to have considered the spirit of the Will instead of rejecting it. Further, the appellants allude to the aspect that there existed a strong emotional bond between the appellant and the deceased, which, the tribunal did not consider while passing the order, and therefore, it is prayed that the impugned order dismissing the claim for compensation against the appellant, be set aside.

ANALYSIS & DECISION:

7. Having given my thoughtful consideration to the submissions advanced by learned counsels for the rival parties at the Bar and on perusal of the record, at the outset, this court finds that the present appeal is bereft of any merits.

8. First things first, the appellant has not even lead any foundation to his case as to how come he was an adopted son of the deceased. There is no averment as to at what age, at what point of time and in what manner or what ceremonies were performed for his adoption by the deceased. There is no averment as to how the adoption was affected in terms of the Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act, and in particular, whether the conditions under Section 11 of the said Act were satisfied. Learned RCT rightly observed that in the Will dated 28.01.2014, the deceased testator did not make any mention of the appellant being her adopted son. Reference can be invited to the decision in Krishnakumar G. Vs. Union of India[7] (Kerala High Court), wherein it was held as under:-