Shahjahanpur rail accident: SC awards compensation to kin

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday awarded Rs 1 crore compensation to family members of 20 people who were killed after falling from the roof of speeding train crammed with job aspirants returning from an ITBP recruitment camp in near Shahjahanpur in Uttar Pradesh in 2011.
A bench of Chief Justice T S Thakur and Justice U U Lalit said that Railway administration failed to take precautionary measures when large number of people were travelling on roof top and asked it to pay compensation to victims.The court also directed the Railways to pay compensation of Rs 1.5 lakhs to persons suffered permanent disability suffered in the incident. The court awarded compensation of Rs 75,000 in case of any grievous injury Rs 25,000 in case simple injury.
“Though the people who travelled on roof top also contributed to the mishap, the Railway Administration, in our view, was not free from blame. Concluding so, we direct that the next of kin of those who died in the incident and those who sustained injuries must be duly compensated by the Railway Administration,” the bench said.
Around two lakh people had assembled for recruitment camp in Bareilly in 2011 from different state and hundreds of young men had climbed atop Himgiri Express while returning from the camp as there was no space in the compartment. The accident took place at Hathaurda Railway Over Bridge near in Shahajahanpur when many candidates could not duck the over bridge and collided with it, leaving 20 of them dead and many injured.
Taking into account the incident, the bench also directed the public transporter to appoint a committee headed by a senior officer within four weeks to examine and remove infringement over Foot-over-bridge(FOR) and Railway-over-bridge across railway line to prevent such incidents.
“We direct the Committee to complete the work as early as possible so that all infringements could be removed in shortest possible time and, in any case, not later than two years. We direct the Committee to file periodic status reports every six months in this Court,” the bench said.