Rail Passenger Wins Legal Battle Over Rs 35 Charged By Indian Railways: Now 3 Lakh Passengers Will Get Rs 2.43 Crore!

After a fight for five years, a man from Kota has finally won a refund of Rs. 35 from the Railways!

Now, this may seem like a lot of effort for such a small sum, but the reward is not as small as it seems.

Kota Based Sujeet Swami Finally Wins His Five Year Fight!

Sujeet Swami, based in Kota, has won his fight of five years and was refunded Rs. 35 from the Railways. 

Along the way, he also helped nearly 3 lakh people who were stuck in the same problem. 

As per Swami, the Railways has approved a sum of Rs. 2.43 crores in refunds to 2.98 lakh IRCTC users. 

Swami has filed around  50 Right to Information applications and also wrote letters to four government departments in his fight.

A Brief History Of Swami’s Fight Since 2017

In the month of April 2017, Sujeet Swami from Kota booked a ticket from Kota to New Delhi for which he paid Rs 765. The train was Golden Temple Express. The date of the journey was July 2nd, 2017.

However, he had to cancel the ticket as it was a waitlisted ticket, and he was shocked when he saw the amount refunded: He received Rs 665, which means, Rs 100 was deducted from the ticket fare.

Rs 65 is the cancellation charge for a wait-listed ticket. Hence Indian Railways deducted Rs 35 extra as a cancellation charge, and Sujeet decided to fight the case. The issue here was that of GST.

The ticket was booked in April, and the journey date was July 2nd, a day after GST was supposed to be implemented.

After Sujeet filed RTI, IRCTC replied that as per commercial circular number 43 from Indian Railways, in case of a ticket booked before GST, and canceled after GST, the service charge charged at the time of booking shall be not refunded.

This is the reason IRCTC deduced Rs 100: Rs 65 as cancellation charge and Rs 35 as service charge. However, later, IRCTC changed the rule and decided to refund the service charge applicable at the time of booking tickets.

On May 1st, he received the refund of Rs 33, which is Rs 2 less than what he was promised. Here started his battle for a refund of Rs. 2, as promised by IRCTC.

What’s more interesting is what Swami did with the refunded money, “Following the approval of refund of Rs 35 to all users, and adding Rs 100 for my five years of struggle, I have donated Rs 535 to Prime Minister Cares Fund.”