The Supreme Court bench of Justices Aravind Kumar and NV Anjaria ruled that the Indian Railways must provide compensation for the death of a passenger in a railway accident, and the passenger could not be construed as a non-bona fide passenger only because he had boarded the wrong train. The ill-fated Shravan Gupta, 23, died in May 2013 when he was headed to Maihar but boarded a wrong train and attempted to alight it while it was in motion. His family was granted Rs 8 lakh compensation by the Railway Claims Tribunal, but it was overruled by the Madhya Pradesh High Court in 2023. The SC has restored the Tribunal award. The significance of the apex court’s order goes beyond this case and touches upon the critical—and less visible—issue of accidental deaths in India’s railway transport system

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