The Odisha High Court on Thursday ordered the Indian Railways to pay the compensation amount to the victims of the August 2012 Sambalpur train accident within four weeks after the next of kin of the victims’ submit their legal heir certificates.
The order came when a Division Bench comprising Chief Justice AK Goel and Justice AK Rath took up a contempt petition filed against the Railways. The court also allowed the Railways to withdraw its review petition that was filed within weeks after the court in November 2012 had ordered the Railways to pay adequate compensation to the victims.
It may be mentioned that after over 16 months of the HC order, the Railways last month had informed that an amount of Rs 77, 44, 569 was sanctioned to pay as damage to the families of all the 14 persons, who died in the mishap. But the Railways delayed payment on the plea that the identities of the victims’ kin are yet to be ascertained.
Appearing for the victims’ families, social worker and advocate Prabir Kumar Das offered his services to cooperate with the Railways in identifying the kin of the deceased. Das informed the HC that he would take the initiative in submitting the legal heir certificates of the beneficiaries before the DRM of Sambalpur within a month, following which the HC asked the Railways to pay the compensation within four weeks after submission of the legal heir certificates.
The accident had taken place on August 12, 2012 when an Express train hit an auto-rickshaw in which the victims were crossing the railway tracks at an unmanned level-crossing at Khairapally near Sambalpur.