Lucknow: After a seven-year-long legal battle, the district consumer disputes redressal commission in Basti has directed the Railways to pay Rs 9.10 lakh as compensation to a local student who missed her entrance exam because of a train delay in May 2018. The complainant Samriddhi, then 17, travelled to Lucknow to appear in her BSc Biotechnology entrance exam for Lucknow University on May 7, 2018. The centre assigned to her was Jai Narayan PG College in the state capital. She bought a ticket for the Intercity Superfast train at Basti station to reach Lucknow. “She was fresh out of school at that time, and had prepared the entire year for her BSc Biotechnology entrance examination at Lucknow University, as only LU had that course at that time,” said her father, advocate Ravi Pratap Singh. “On May 7, 2018, we were at Basti station to board Intercity Superfast express which reaches Basti at 6.55 am, and was almost on time on that day too. The train comes from Gorakhpur and terminates at Lucknow. Though we boarded it on time, it stopped so much enroute that we reached Lucknow at 1.34 pm instead of its scheduled arrival at 11 am. We pleaded at the exam centre to let my daughter in but it did not help. She cried so much. She was inconsolable,” said Singh. Having lost one academic year, the aggrieved student, through her father who is a lawyer, sent a legal notice to railways claiming Rs 20-lakh compensation in May 2018. But notices sent to the Railway authorities got no response. After which, the aggrieved party reached the District Consumer Disputes Redressal Commision, Basti in Sept 2018. During the hearings later, the Railways acknowledged the train delay, but could not give any satisfactory explanation for what caused the delay. President of the district consumer court, Basti, Judge Amarjeet Verma and member Ajay Prakash Singh, after hearing both the parties, ruled earlier last week that the Railways failed to provide timely service and should pay Rs 9.1 lakh as compensation to the student within 45 days, failing which it would have to pay an additional 12% interest on the amount. Meanwhile, Samriddhi now has completed her MSc in Organic Chemistry from SS Khanna College in Prayagraj and is preparing for her PhD in organic chemistry. “But this does not belittle the fact that her one year was wasted because of the Railways laxity,” said the father.
