Consumer rights: ‘Pay damages for causing inconvenience’

Train bound for Karachi broke down near Sukkur station.


Our Correspondent April 10, 2012

MULTAN:


A consumer court on Tuesday directed Pakistan Railways divisional superintendent to pay damages to a man who had to miss his brother’s wedding last year because a train he and his 50 companions boarded for Karachi broke down near Sukkur station.


Justice Shehzad Pervez Abbasi directed DS Abdur Razzaq Shah to pay Complainant Farhan Shahid Rs500,000 in damages, Rs40,000 to reimburse the cost of 51 train tickets and Rs15,810 to compensate for the cost of travel from Sukkur to Karachi. The DS was also asked to pay the fee charged to the complainant by his counsel.

“The travelling remained incomplete and we were asked to leave the train at Sukhur station,” Shahid submitted in his petition. He said he and 50 other relatives accompanying him in the train from Multan to Karachi were made to vacate the train at the station on March 20, 2011. “We were told that the engine had broken down and that no other train will leave for Karachi that day,” he said.

He said the wedding party had remained stranded in Sukkur for a day, adding that it left for Karachi the next day on buses. He said by the time they reached Karachi the wedding ceremonies had already taken place. “I had to pay extra money on top of the standard fare,” he said.

The petitioner said the railways administration refused to arrange alternative transport for the party. “I contacted them later and asked them to compensate me but they declined my request,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 11th, 2012.

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