Sri Utpal Kumar Bhattacharya, Member

                Instant Appeal u/s 15 of the C. P. Act, 1986 has been filed by the Appellants/OPs challenging the judgment and order dated 27/12/2017 passed by the Ld. District Forum, Kolkata Unit II in complaint case No. 134 of 2017 allowing the complaint in part on contest against the Appellants/OPs with the directions upon all the Appellants/OPs to pay jointly and severally to the complainant an amount of Rs. 1,00,000/-as compensation along with cost of Rs. 10,000/-.

                The Appellants/OPs were further directed to deposit jointly and severally with the District Forum an amount of Rs. 1,00,000/-as punitive damages.

                The order has been directed to be carried out within a deadline of 30 days from the date of the impugned Judgment and Order, failing which, as ordered, the Appellant/OP Nos. 1 and 2 have to pay Rs. 200/-as fine for the delay per day and accumulated amount shall also be deposited with the Forum.

                Briefly stated, the facts having relevance with the disposal of the instant complaint were that the Respondent/Complainant, being accompanied with his wife, brother, brother’s wife and niece, booked Birth Nos. 17,18,19,20 and 23 in A.C. 3 tier Coach No. B-2 of Mumbai—Howrah Mail for their journey dated 06/05/2016 from Nagpur to Howrah. They boarded at Nagpur on the scheduled date of journey and found 3 of their reserved seats, viz. seat Nos. 17, 20 and 23 were occupied by some unauthorized wait list passengers. Some of the persons occupying the seats vacated the seats on request while two persons sitting on seat No. 23 did not pay heed to the request. There was continuous entry of unauthorized passengers in the reserved compartment at seven subsequent stations and at least 4 to 5 persons occupied the reserved seats as above till 10-10 PM putting the Respondent/ Complainant and his family members in extremely embarrassing and uncomfortable situation which compelled them not even to take their dinners in time. The TTE who visited the compartment chose to remain silent watcher of the situation and left the compartment without taking any effective measure to remove the unauthorized entrants from the reserved compartments. The Respondent/Complainant felt the presence of unauthorized entrants in the reserved compartments all along in course of their overnight journey and for obvious reasons, felt scared of their security.

                Further, the Respondent/Complainant was very dissatisfied with the condition of the toilets of the compartment which was emitting pungent smelling. The Complainant himself poured into the commode 16 to 17 mugs of water but failed to improve the condition of the toilet. What was more, the toilet was not having sufficient water which came apparent in the following morning when, even after the push button being hardly pressed, flushing was not possible in the commode. The Respondent/Complainant witnessed some drops of black water slowly trickling down from the tap which led him to assume that the rail authority was least careful about supplying hygienic water to its passenger, let alone keeping the compartment clean and safe.

                The Respondent/Complainant reached Howrah station on 07/05/2016 after undertaking allegedly a horrible overnight journey from Nagpur. He lodged Complaint dated 10/08/2016t through his letter dated 27/05/2016 to Appellant/OP Nos. 1, 2 and 3 and letter dated 10/08/2016 to Appellant/OP No. 4 holding the Appellants/OPs responsible for the lapses and claiming compensation from them. None other than Appellant/OP No. 3 responded to the communication but that response was more about shifting responsibility upon the Appellant/OP No. 2 who, as claimed in the letter, was responsible for maintenance of the train.

                Sensing that no effective measure was forthcoming, the Respondent/Complainant lodged the complaint before the Ld. District Forum. Impugned Judgment and Order which was put under challenge in the instant Appeal arose from the said complaint case.

                Heard Ld. Advocate appearing on behalf of both sides.

                The Ld. Advocate appearing on behalf of the Appellants/OPs, denying every individual charge brought against his clients, submitted that the Ld. District Forum passed a biased order awarding added privilege to the Respondent/Complainant because of his being a retired justice of the Hon’ble High Court, Calcutta without emphasizing on documentary evidences corroborating his allegation which normally were relied upon while adjudicating other cases.

                As he continued, the impugned Judgment and Order left mention on number of occasions that allegations had no reasons to disbelieve since the same were brought against the Appellants/OPs by none else than a retired justice. Apparently, the Appellants/OPs became victims of a discriminatory view which was reflected in the impugned judgment and order passed by the Ld. District Forum.

                As submitted, the Ld. Advocate for the Respondent/Complainant, in course of his argument, pointed out that the Appellants/OPs failed to offer services to a retired justice maintaining due protocol. As submitted further, the railway authority had no information about the identity of the Respondent/Complainant and even if it was known, no provision was there to offer any special privilege to him.

                The Ld. Advocate continued that the Respondent/Complainant did not record in the complaint book his grievance. He did not even lodge any complaint at Howrah station. He only lodged a complaint long after 20 days and the Ld. District Forum passed the impugned order taking cognizance to the said delayed complaint.

                As he continued, it was not a fact that the toilet was not having sufficient water. The Respondent/Complainant himself admitted that he poured 16-17 mugs of water into the commode. This, as submitted, would not have been possible had there been any paucity of water, as alleged.

                As regards unclean toilet with pungent smell, the Ld. Advocate refused to admit that the toilet was not cleaned. As submitted, the toilet in case of distant journey, due to usage by a good number of passengers, emits pungent smell and that is exactly what must have happened on the instant occasion.

                Apart from the above, the Ld. Advocate raised the points of lack of territorial jurisdiction of the Ld. District Forum to adjudicate the issue and the misjoinder of parties, as raised before the Ld. District Forum, challenging the maintainability of the complaint.

                With the above submission, the Ld. Advocate prayed for the Appeal to be allowed setting aside the impugned judgment and order.

                The Ld. Advocate appearing on behalf of the Respondent/Complainant, per contra, submitted that there should not be any question of territorial jurisdiction as the cause of action could not be initiated from a definite location in a running train. The territorial jurisdiction, in this context, very rightly determined by the Ld. District Forum in consideration of the facts that the tickets of the subject journey were booked from Gardenreach, Kolkata.

                The issue of misjoinder of party, as he continued, has also been decided with adequate justification in the impugned judgment and order. There was, as contended, no point refuting the observation of the Ld. District Forum in the impugned judgment and order to the effect that the Appellant/OP Nos. 3 and 4 should be treated as necessary party as the journey commenced from their jurisdiction and the Appellant/OP no. 1, being the chairmen of the Board, cannot escape his liability for the deficiencies in rendering services as alleged in the complaint.

                The Ld. Advocate placed before the Bench the points of deficiencies alleged in the petition of complaint and submitted that a person who happened to be a retired justice had no reason to bring vague allegations against the Railway authorities

                The Ld. Advocate laid emphasis upon payment of compensation to the tunes as claimed in the petition of complaint setting aside the impugned judgment and order.

                Perused the papers on record and considered submissions of the Ld. Advocates appearing on behalf of both sides. We do not find any reason to differ from the observations of the Ld. District Forum in points of territorial jurisdiction and misjoinder of party. Said points being rightly decided in favour of the complainant in the impugned judgment and order, we shrink from lengthening discussion on those points.

                Acknowledging the fact that the complainant did not record the inconveniences he and his family members sustained in course of their journey in the complaint book being maintained with the TTE in charge of the compartment , we consider it  also a fact at the same time that the passengers were rarely provided with such complaint book for recording their experience by the concerned TTE on demand. Complainant, however, made a mistake by not filing any complaint at Howrah station after reaching there. It would have been easier to assess the merit of the case with more accuracy had he diarized his complaint in brief immediately after arrival at Howrah station on 07/06/2016 to be followed by a detailed report afterwards . The lapse on the part of the Respondent/Complainant, however, does not affect the merit of the proceeding, nevertheless this is a lacuna which is deemed fit to be recorded here.

                Although, the Appellants/OPs denied every point of allegation taking advantage of absence of any complaint made on the spot, we cannot rule out totally the contents of the complaint in view of the fact that no responsible person can contemplate about filing a baseless complaint against a Government Institution. It is, therefore, our observation that the Respondent/Complainant filed the complaint case not getting due services which he and his family members were supposed to receive from the Railway authority.

                We, however, are not at one with the claim of a fabulous amount of compensation and punitive damages to be deposited with the Consumer Welfare Fund to the tunes of Rs.10,00,000/- and 8,00,000/- respectively made by the Respondent/Complainant in the complaint petition which, in absence of proper justification, does not appear to be in proportion with the degree of deficiency as alleged therein against the Appellants/OPs.

                In the above context we intend to place our reliance to the decision of the Hon’ble National Commission in FA No. 398 of 2016 and FA No. 564 of 2017 [IFFCO Tokio General Insurance Co. Limited and Anr.—Vs—M/S Bestochem Formulation (I) Ltd. and Ors] reported in 2018 (3) CPR 355 (NC) wherein the Hon’ble Commission has been pleased to observe that quantum of compensation must show due application of mind by Consumer Forum.

 We also observed that the Ld. District Forum was too liberal while awarding the compensation in favour of the Respondent/Complainant. Further, we do not agree with the directions passed in the impugned judgment and order upon the Appellants/OPs towards payment of punitive damages and fine and feel it appropriate to be totally waived.

                Hence,                                              

 Ordered

                that the Appeal be and the same is allowed in part with cost of Rs. 5,000/-to be paid to the Respondent/Complainant jointly and severally by the Appellants/OPs. The Appellants/OPs are further directed to pay jointly and severally a compensation of Rs.15,000/- to the Respondent/Complainant.

                Entire order has to be carried out within 45 days from the date of the instant order, failing which, simple interest @ 9% p.a. shall accrue to Rs. 15,000/-, being the compensation amount only, from the date of default till the entire amount is fully realized.

                The impugned judgment and order stands modified accordingly.

                The Appeal under No. A/139/2018 originated from the same impugned judgment and order shall be governed by the instant order and shall accordingly be dismissed.

                Let a copy of the instant order be kept with the case record of A/139/2018.