Woman's valuables stolen during travel, now railways will have to pay one lakh rupees

A few years ago, a Delhi woman's valuables were stolen during a train journey. Now, the railways will have to pay compensation of Rs 1,08,000 to the woman. The Consumer Commission has directed the concerned General Manager of the railways to pay this compensation amount. It said there was negligence in the services of the railways due to which the woman's luggage got stolen.

It was complained in the District Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, Delhi, that the complainant lady passenger was traveling by Malwa Express from Jhansi to Gwalior in a reserved compartment in January 2016. During this time, some non-reserved passengers boarded her reserved compartment. Those passengers fled away with valuables worth Rs 80,000 from the bag belonging to the complainant passenger. The entire incident was complained of by the woman to the Consumer Commission.

The woman complained, "Railways must make the journey safe and pleasant, and the responsibility of luggage of passengers is also on the railways." While hearing the complaint, the chairman of the commission, Inder Jeet Singh, and its member Rashmi Bansal rejected the argument of the railways that this woman passenger was careless about her luggage and had not booked the luggage. She also informed that she had to struggle to lodge a complaint about the incident.

On this, the commission remarked on how the incident took place, and how the valuables of the woman were stolen, after that, she had to bear much hassle for getting an FIR registered. The commission observed that if the railways and its staff had not been negligent during the discharge of their duty, the woman's luggage would not have been stolen and ordered the railway general manager to pay a total amount of Rs 1,08,000 as compensation to the complainant, Rs 80,000 for the trouble caused during the case hearing and Rs 8,000 for expenses of hearing of the case.