In 2013, the Railways had issued a ticket to a 73-year-old man Vishnu Kant Shukla and the ticket got misprinted as 3013; Shukla was fined Rs 800 fine for ticket misprint and was humiliated and forcibly evicted from the train

The Hush Post: A double mistake committed by the Railways authorities have come back to haunt them. First the authorities committed a mistake by issuing a ticket of “one thousand years in advance” by giving a ticket of 3013 instead of 2013 –which was a minor printing mistake– then the Railways officials committed a bigger mistake by humiliating and forcibly evicting a senior citizen who was holding that misprinted ticket from a moving train. Now, the Railways have been slapped with a penalty of Rs 13,000.

The humiliating incident had happened with a 73-year-old senior citizen Vishnu Kant Shukla, who retired as a professor. A train journey turned out to be a horrible and humiliating experience for him despite holding a valid ticket that has misprinted date, a mistake by the Railways officials themselves, a report said.

On November 19, 2013, Vishnu Kant Shukla had booked a ticket for the Himgiri Express for going from Saharanpur to Jaunpur. But, the train ticket examiner (TTE) forcibly evicted him from the moving train and also humiliated him in front of other passengers, the report said.

Shukla had to go through this harrowing experience due to the Railways’ own mistake of a misprint on his ticket, where the date of travel was mentioned in the year ‘3013’. That mistake of the Indian Railways has now returned to haunt it.

On June 12, Vishnu Kant Shukla got justice from the Saharanpur consumer court when the court awarded him compensation, five years after he was evicted from the train in Moradabad, the report said.

Vishnu Kant Shukla is a retired head of the Hindi department in Saharanpur’s JV Jain Degree College. “I am not a person who would travel by train with a fake ticket and here was a TTE who humiliated me in front of everyone, demanded I pay a penalty of Rs 800, and even got me evicted from the train,” Shukla was quoted as saying.

He also said that the journey was important for him as he was on his way to meet a friend whose wife had passed away.

After the incident, Shukla while returning to Saharanpur, filed a case against the Indian Railways for the misconduct in the consumer court. The case was dragged for five long years and on this Tuesday, the court gave orders to rule the case against Railways. The court even issued a penalty of Rs 10,000 on the Railways and an additional Rs 3,000 as compensation, the report said.

The consumer court observed in its verdict: “To de-board, a person of an advanced age in the middle of a journey causes a great amount of physical strain and mental harassment. This clearly shows there were flaws in services provided by the department.”