THE HON'BLE SRI JUSTICE K.C. BHANU CIVIL MISCELLANEOUS APPEAL NO.707 OF 2009 JUDGMENT: This Civil Miscellaneous Appeal by the applicants under Section 23 of the Railway Claims Tribunal Act, 1987, is preferred aggrieved by the order, dated 24-04-2009 in O.A.A No.540 of 2005 on the file of the Railway Claims Tribunal, Secunderabad Bench at Secunderabad, whereunder and whereby the application filed by the applicants claiming compensation of Rs.4,00,000/- consequent upon the death of Tokala Suresh (hereinafter referred to as ‘the deceased’) in an untoward incident, was dismissed. 2. Brief facts are that on 02-12-2005, the deceased along with others boarded 321 Ramagiri Passenger in the morning hours after purchasing ticket to Kagaznagar. When the deceased went to wash basin, he accidentally fell from the train between Repallewada and Asifabad station and succumbed to injuries. Hence, the claim application. 3. The railways filed written statement denying the averments in the application and stated that the journey ticket was not there and hence, the deceased was not a bona fide passenger and that SS/Asifabad was not informed of the incident by his co- passengers, but came to know about the same only when the keyman reported that he had found the body and hence, it prayed to dismiss the application. 4. Basing on the above pleadings, the following issues have been framed for trial. 1.Whether the applicants were dependents of the deceased? 2.Whether the deceased was a bona fide passenger of train No.321 Ramagiri passenger, traveling from Bellampally to Kagaznagar on 02-12-2005? 3.Whether he died of an untoward incident of fall from the said train? 4.To what relief? 5. During enquiry, on behalf of the applicants A.Ws. 1 and 2 were examined and Exs.A1 to A5 were got marked. No evidence either oral or documentary was adduced on behalf of the Railways. 6. The Claims Tribunal, after considering the evidence on record, dismissed the claim application. Challenging the same, the present Civil Miscellaneous Appeal is filed by the applicants. 7. Now the point for consideration is whether the order of the Claims Tribunal is correct, legal and proper? 8. Learned counsel appearing for the applicants contended that in the final report as well as in the inquest report, it is clearly stated that the deceased was a bona fide passenger and he fell down from the running train and therefore, the Tribunal ought to have granted compensation. 9. On the other hand, learned standing counsel appearing for the Railways contended that the deceased was not a bona fide passenger as he failed to produce the ticket and the medical evidence is totally inconsistent with ocular testimony, that the Tribunal after considering the evidence on record, rightly dismissed the claim application and there are no grounds to interfere with the same. 10. For the purpose of claiming compensation under Section 124-A of the Railways Act, 1989 (for short ‘the Act’), two requirements have to be satisfied, firstly, there must be untoward incident whereunder a person died. Untoward incident includes a person falling from the running train accidentally. Secondly, a person who died or sustained injuries must be a bona fide passenger travelling in the train with a valid ticket. The evidence of A.W.2 was disbelieved by the Tribunal on the ground that he failed to produce the ticket to show that he was travelling along with the deceased. It is in the evidence of A.W.2 that he along with other passengers went back to the place where the deceased fell down from the running train and found the dead body, but he has not given any report to the police stating that he was travelling along with the deceased at the time of incident. Four passengers were travelling along with the deceased. All the four persons would not have lost the tickets. Therefore, the Tribunal after recording reasons, disbelieved the evidence of A.W.2. If the evidence of A.W.2 is accepted, it can be said that the deceased fell down from the running train accidentally while travelling with valid ticket. The post-mortem report shows that the cause of the death of the deceased was due to Cardio respiratory failure due to hemorrhage and shock due to heady injury due to dashing of train. The medical evidence completely rules out the possibility of deceased falling down from the train so as to infer that the deceased died in an untoward incident. From the medical evidence, it is clear that the train must have dashed the deceased, as a result, he died. In such circumstances, it cannot be said that the deceased died in an untoward incident. 11. Learned counsel appearing for the applicants relied on a decision reported in ASHRANI DAS V UNION OF INDIA AND ANOTHER [1], wherein it was held thus: “The question that falls for consideration before us is if a witness makes a particular wrong statement in course of his deposition, whether his entire statements should be disbelieved in a situation when his other relevant statements are corroborated by the documentary and circumstantial evidence on record believed by the Tribunal itself and those very documentary evidence were treated as trustworthy. In other words, because a particular statement of the witness did not match with those documentary evidence whether the Tribunal was justified in branding the witness as unworthy of credence and at the same time, in discarding those documentary evidence supporting the case of the claimant? The above decision has no application to the present facts of the case because the medical evidence is totally inconsistent with ocular testimony. Even if there are some discrepancies in the ocular testimony, the main fabric of the witness cannot be discarded. 12. Accordingly, the Civil Miscellaneous Appeal is dismissed. No order as to costs. ________________ K.C. BHANU, J DATED: 17-08-2011 Hsd [1] 2010 ACJ 2777