No official Railway Board PDF has been traced for this entry yet. The text below was read from the document held in the library.
| Type | Commercial Circular |
|---|---|
| Topic | claims |
Accordingly, a claims case which becomes three years old is termed as suit-
COMPENSATION FOR LOSS, DAMAGE ETC. OF
GOODS/ANIMALS
What is a Railway Claim (Goods/Animals) -
A railway claim may be defined as a formal demand by the rightful claimant for
compensation in respect of the goods or animals entrusted to the Railway
Administration for carriage from one station to the other and that have not reached the
destination in the condition handed over by virtue of -
a)
Complete non-delivery of the consignment.
b)
Partial delivery of the consignment.
c)
Pilferage, damage, deterioration of packages.
d)
Rotting of perishables like fruits and vegetables.
False Claims
Section 149: Making a false claim for compensation
If any person requiring compensation from a railway administration for loss,
destruction, damage, deterioration or non-delivery of any consignment makes a claim
which is false or which he knows or believes to be false or does not believe to be true,
he shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years,
or with fine, or with both.
Time-barred claims
As per the provision in Section 106 of the Railways Act, 1989, claims for non-
delivery or partial delivery or damage of consignment has to be filed within 6 months
from the date of booking of the consignment. After expiry of the period of six months,
the case becomes time-barred and are generally not entertained. The General Managers
of zonal railways are however, empowered to settle time-barred cases at their
discretion after satisfying themselves about the reasonableness of late filing of claims.
Suit-barred claims
The definition of suit-barred cases may be seen in the light of item Nos. 10 & 11
of Part II of the schedule of the Indian Limitation Act 1963 which read as under :
Description of Suit
Period of
Limitation
Time from which
period starts
10. Against a carrier for compensation
for losing or injuring goods
Three years
When the loss or
injury occurs
11. Against a carrier for compensation
for non-delivery of, or delay in
delivering goods
Three years
When goods ought
to be delivered
Accordingly, a claims case which becomes three years old is termed as suit-
barred and thus, no suit can be filed against the railways in regard to that case. The
reasons for the case becoming three years old may be many i.e. for want of relevant
documents (not accompanying the claims notice), for want of some clarification from
the party, etc. after which the claims is normally repudiated. However, in some cases,
the delay in settlement of claims is on account of the railways i.e. for want of report of
the tracing inspectors, for fixing of Inter-railway liability & Staff responsibility, etc.
resulting in the case becoming suit-barred. Such cases are however, not repudiated
casually as suit-barred but are decided on merit of the case. The General Managers of
zonal railways enjoy the discretionary powers for waiver of suit-bar aspect.
Not Received Cell
In order to achieve the objective of giving better after-sale service to the
customers, the Indian Railways have established "Not Received Cells (NR Cells) at
Divisional & Zonal level. The duty of these Cells involve tracing and connecting
consignments which do not reach the desired destination within reasonable transit-
time. For even better monitoring of cases, an NR Cell is also working at Railway
Board. An aggrieved customer can directly contact the NR Cell/concerned officer on
phone or by E-mail.
N R Cell
Phone. No. Fax. No.
E-mail
Railway Board 011-3384416 011-3386950 dtcclaim@rb.railnet.gov.in
011-3303850
nrcell@rb.railnet.gov.in
011-3303858
West Central Railway 9752415977 0761-2677072
Jabalpur
0761-2627480 0761-2678280
Bhopal 0755-2454602 0755-2457166
Kota 0744-2467021 0744-2467160
Extract shown above; the full text is available in the search app.
Open this circular in the search app · Search all 4,025 documents