The Supreme Court rapped the Railways on Monday for not taking steps to recover its loss of over Rs 33 crore from the Haryana Government; three years after the State witnessed serious disruption of rail traffic by Jats who were accused of killing two Dalits in Mirchpur village.
“Do you want to write-off the loss,” said a Bench headed by Justice GS Singhvi. “This is just one episode. There are other similar incidents. How do you propose to recover,” the Bench asked senior advocate JS Attri, who appeared for the Centre. It gave Government two days to inform what steps have been taken till date to recover the amount.
The Railways maintained that security of trains and tracks is the responsibility of State. For more than 40 days, no train was allowed to run through Haryana leading to national loss. Trains and tracks were also destroyed which itself resulted in actual loss of over Rs 7 lakh. The bench wondered what prevented the Centre from recovering at least the actual loss, ruing the fact, “nobody wants to catch the bull by the horn.”
The court also wished to know from the State Government about the steps it had taken to implement the SC/ST (Prohibition of Atrocities) Act 1989.