Court staff try and ‘attach’ train

[ganpat1956]

Saturday March 31 2007 09:17 IST
<SMALL>TUMKUR: What does the court do to ensure the railways follows its orders? Seize the train.

The Additional Civil (senior division) and Accident Relief Court’s staff did just that when they tried to execute the attachment of the Intercity Express to the surprise of onlookers and passengers at the Tumkur railway station on Friday evening.

The reason: The railways failed to respond to court order, stipulating payment of compensation to the kin of four accident victims.

On Jan 6, 1998, at around 12.15 p.m, six persons including three women had died when a locomotive bound for Tumkur rammed into an autorickshaw at the Mydala level crossing near Kyathasandra. The deceased were Krishna, Fazal, Govindappa, Ratnamma, Anasuyamma and Yashoda.

Though it was a manned level crossing, negligence of the rail staff in charge of closing the gates at the level crossing had resulted in the tragedy. The Railway Police had registered a case against the employee.

The kin of the victims had petitioned the court for which the general manager, Southern Railway, Chennai, officer on special duty of South-West Railway, Hubli and the divisional railway manager, Southern Railway, Bangalore, were the respondents.

On 26 July, 2006, the court had pronounced its judgment in favour of the petitioners and ordered the respondents to pay the kin of the victims, Govindappa, Ratnamma, Anasuyamma and Yashoda, a compensation of Rs 6 lakh each. Counsels Umesh and Harish Babu had appeared on behalf of the kin of the victims.

In spite of several notices, railways did not pay the compensation. As a result the court had ordered for the seizure of three computer systems and also the attachment of Intercity Express No. 2725.

Following which the court staff including a bailiff and three process servers, along with counsel Umesh arrived at the station and tried to ‘attach’ the train at 4 p.m. They stopped the train which forced station master T R Sebastian and the chief commercial officer to arrive at the spot.

The bailiff also ‘threatened’ to lift the broad gauge train, including the 4,000 HP diesel loco, much to the amusement of onlookers.</SMALL>
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