Mumbai, Feb 12: Observing that “alcohol ruins… physical and mental health, relationships… and has severe long-term lifestyle consequences,” the Bombay High Court has dismissed a railway injury compensation claim, holding that the applicant’s admitted intoxication attracted the statutory exclusion under the Railways Act.
Appeal against tribunal order rejected
Justice Jitendra Jain rejected an appeal filed by Harish Narayan Suvarna challenging a 2014 order of the Railway Claims Tribunal that had denied him compensation for injuries suffered at a railway platform. While the court found that the tribunal’s reasoning on how the accident occurred required correction, it concluded that the applicant was nevertheless barred from relief because the injury resulted from an act committed in a state of intoxication.
Suvarna, a lab assistant with Bombay Hospital, claimed that around midnight on March 10, 2001, he was waiting on Platform No. 1 at Marine Lines station to board a Borivali-bound train when he was struck by an approaching train. He was initially taken to GT Hospital and later shifted to Bombay Hospital. Admission records at Bombay Hospital noted that he had consumed “four large pegs of liquor” before dinner.
Court clarifies ‘untoward incident’ provision
The tribunal had rejected the claim on the ground that he was “knocked down”. Justice Jain clarified that the case was not one of trespassing on tracks but involved a passenger allegedly standing too close to the platform edge. The court said that this reasoning alone was insufficient to defeat the claim.
The central issue, however, was whether the injury qualified as an “untoward incident” under Section 124A of the Railways Act, which bars compensation where injury is caused by acts committed in a state of intoxication.
“When a person is so heavily drunk, then his act of standing close to the border of the platform would be a case falling within clause (d) of the proviso to Section 124A,” the judge observed, noting that intoxication impairs judgment and awareness. Since the applicant himself admitted alcohol consumption at the time of hospital admission, the court held that further expert testing was unnecessary.
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Referring to a quote by author F. Scott Fitzgerald — “First you take a drink, then the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes you” — the judge underscored the broader risks of alcohol use.
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