The National Consumer Dispute Redressal Commission 8th March 2013 dismissed to review the decision rendered by the State and District Consumer dispute redressal commission in NK Das v. Union of India, NF Railways and Chief Commercial Manager, N F Railways in Revision Petition No. 2740 of 2012 wherein the Petitioner N K Das had sought review of the decision of state commission that had altered the compensation and cost awarded to the Petitioner by the district Forum on the ground of it being on the higher side in consideration to the grievance of the Petitioner mentioned in the complaint. The dispute related to refund of the fare of cancelled tickets by the respondents that is from the Railways. The petitioner had booked 2 tickets successively under credit card scheme. The petitioner thereafter due to some circumstance cancelled the first ticket and cancelled the second ticket on the second occasion. The petitioner meanwhile received the refund for the first ticket from the respondents (after he filed complaint to District forum for not receiving the refund for the same from the respondents) but did not received the refund for the second cancelled ticket in spite of repeated request. The petitioner filed complaint with respect to the same to the District Forum. The respondents submitted that the refund could be made to the petitioner only on the production of the “charge slip” that was provided to the petitioner at the time of booking of tickets. The Respondents also submitted that this slip was required to be produced for the making of the refund in case of the cancellation was made after 12 hours from the departure of the train. The respondents also submitted that refund for the first ticket without the production of the charge slip was made on the ground of it being cancelled before the scheduled departure of the train. The petitioner submitted that he had lost the said slip but on the basis of Rules contained in Tariff Rules of the Railways was eligible to be refunded with the fare amount. In this consumer case, The District and State forums respectively after looking at the Rules observed that Rules did not support non-refund of the fare for the cancelled ticket and it was only in case when refund is sought at the station after the time gap of 12 hours of the scheduled train that, the refund is not granted and the decision of granting or refusing to grant the refund is decided by the higher authorities. The District and State Forums also decided that production of the “charge slip” were not essential for the refund as the railways department had copies of the same and the respondents had failed to show any rules supporting the production of slips for the procurement of the refund. The State commission had held that there was no legal bar in entertaining the claim of the complainant for refund of the cancelled ticket even after 12 hours of scheduled departure of the train and had observed that the railways should not have with held the legally due benefit to the complainant consumer for long on the pretext of mere formalities or technicalities. National commission in respect of revision petition after looking at the decision of the forums below observed that respondents could not establish the mandatory requirement of card holder “charge slip” for the refund and dismissed the petition. The National Commission held that state commission order did not suffered from any infirmity or illegality or erroneous exercise of jurisdiction and thereby did not called for interference by the commission. The National commission further observed that the refund of the ticket was sought not on unavoidable grounds or due to any emergency but on the ground of petitioner forgetting the date of departure indicating contributory negligence on the part of petitioner and thereby justifying the state Commission order of reduction of compensation amount.
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