IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT PATNA MA No.96 of 2011 Smt. Sheela Devi, W/O Late Krishna Murari Yadav, resident of Village- Mashaurhi Dih, P.S. Mashaurhi, District-Patna (Applicant in the Tribunal) -------------------- Appellant Versus The Union of India represented through the General Manager, East Railway, Kolkata ------------------- Respondent ----------- For the Appellant: Sri Anant Kumar No.1, Advocate For the Respondent: Sri Mahesh Prasad, Advocate ------------ 05 15-04-2011 Heard the parties. The present appeal has been preferred under Section 23 of the Railway Claims Tribunal Act, 1987. The appellant has challenged the order dated 13.7.2009, whereby the claim application filed by the appellant under Section 125 of the Railways Act, 1989 was rejected. Short fact of the case is that a claim petition was filed before the Railway Claims Tribunal disclosing therein that on 29.8.1999 the husband of the appellant was returning from Gaya to Masaurhi by Train no.339 Dn. Train ( Ganga Damodar Express) after purchasing valid ticket and while the train was approaching outer signal of Taregana Railway Station, the husband of the appellant accidentally fell down from the train and died at the railway track itself, for which a case vide U.D. Case No.24/99 was registered . Inquest report was also prepared on the same and thereafter, postmortem examination was conducted on the dead body of the husband of the appellant. It was claimed that the deceased was a bona fide passenger and, as such, the claimant was 2 entitled to get the claim amount of Rs.4 lacs. From the records, it appears that the claimant after filing the claim petition never chose to appear for her examination in support of her claim petition. It further appears that legal heirs of the deceased, who were none else but son and daughter of the deceased, were substituted in the claim case. However, even they also never appeared in support of the claim case. In the claim case, only one person, namely, Jitendra Kumar was examined as A.W.1, who tried to support the claim petition. The learned court below after considering the materials available on the record was of the opinion that the claim was not sustainable and, accordingly, it was dismissed. Learned counsel for the appellant , while pressing the present appeal at the very outset , has argued that it is true that the claimant or any legal heir of the deceased had not come forward before the Claim Tribunal , but at the same time it was required on the part of the Railway Claims Tribunal to issue notice to the claimant and legal heirs of the deceased and, accordingly, it was prayed that the matter may be remanded back to the court below for fresh adjudication. Learned counsel appearing on behalf of the sole Respondent/ Eastern Railway has vehemently opposed the prayer of the appellant. It was submitted on behalf of the Respondent that it was a case of no evidence and, as such, the learned tribunal has not committed any error. He further points out that only witness, who had come in support of the claim petition, has also made 3 contradictory statements and, as such, he was found completely unreliable. Besides hearing learned counsel for the parties, I have also perused the materials available on record. After going through the materials on record, particularly the fact that the claimant herself had not appeared before the tribunal, while the claimant was being represented by her advocate, the Court is of the opinion that the learned tribunal has committed no error in dismissing the claim petition. Accordingly, I do not find any merit in the present appeal. The appeal stands rejected. NKS/- ( Rakesh Kumar,J.)