It further stated that the railways had itself framed rules
permitting clients to approach several any station for refunds.
MUMBAI: Even as the Indian Railways are crowing about the huge revenues and profits they are garnering in the last few years, they need to improve their services to consumers like refund of unused tickets, the National Consumer Dispute Redressal Commission has ruled in the Northern Railway General Manager vs Shalini Kapoor case.
Kapoor had purchased a ticket of Gomati Express from New Delhi for Kanpur. He had paid the fare of Rs445. The train got delayed by over five hours as against its scheduled time.
So she chose to travel by the Rajdhani Express on the day and surrendered the unused ticket at Allahabad railway station next day for refund.
The Allahabad station master told her that she would get full refund as the train was late by over 2 hours and it would take at least 90 days as per the rules.
However, even after a year and five months, despite sending two reminders, the railways did not send her the refund amount of the unused ticket.
Kapoor filed a complaint in the District Consumer Dispute Redressal Forum at Delhi, which accepted her contentions and granted her compensation of Rs7,000 plus litigation costs of Rs1,000.
The railways challenged the verdict in the state commission which refused to admit the case. The railways then filed a review petition with the National Commission contending that the appropriate forum for filing the case was the Railway Claims Tribunal, that the traveller should have surrendered the ticket at the station from where she was to start her journey and then processed her application to get refund.
The National Commission held that the Consumer Protection Act was easy way of redressing grievances. It further stated that the railways had itself framed rules
permitting clients to approach several any station for refunds.
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