Numerous railway passengers in our country suffer fatal injuries as a result of falling down in their anxiety to get into a moving train. In such cases, are railways liable to pay compensation? The Supreme Court rejected the railways’ plea that there was no fault on its part and there was contributory negligence on part of a deceased passenger. After an elaborate analysis and a global survey of the principle of strict liability Justice Markandey Katju, speaking for the court in an erudite judgment, held that the court has to develop new principles for fixing liability in cases like the one before it. The bench held that railways were liable to pay compensation on the principle that strict liability is based on the premise that “because such public bodies benefit the community it is unfair to leave the result of a non-negligent accident to lie fortuitously on a particular individual rather than to spread it among the community generally”.

This judgment is a fine example of commendable judicial activism in the field of private law and needs to be emulated especially in the context of welfare statutes. The judgment will provide much needed succour to millions of our people, particularly the middle class and poor sections who travel by trains.

Tribune anthology

Before I shifted to Delhi in 1977, my morning reading would be the Times of India and after the Emergency, the intrepid Indian Express. My acquaintance with the Tribune was owing to the Privy Council opinion in 1939 which held that the Trust under which the Tribune was created could qualify as charitable because the object of supplying the Province (Punjab) with an organ of educated public opinion was an object of general public utility.

... contd.