Rly claims tribunalbench inaugurated in Sangam city

PRAYAGRAJ: The 20th bench of railway claims tribunal was inaugurated in the old general manager office of North Central Railway (NCR) here on Sunday by justice Govind

PRAYAGRAJ: The 20th bench of railway claims tribunal was inaugurated in the old general manager office of North Central Railway (NCR) here on Sunday by justice Govind Mathur, chief justice, Allahabad high court.

Others present on the occasion were justice KS Ahluwalia, chairman, railway claims tribunal (RCT), Rajiv Chaudhry, general manager, NCR, Sanjiv Aggarwal, member (judicial), railway claims tribunal, Allahabad bench and Madhusudan Rao, principal executive director, Commercial Railway Board.

Installation of member judicial of the tribunal was done by justice Mathur.

The tribunal has been set up in Prayagraj keeping in mind that it is not only religiously, politically and educationally important city of Uttar Pradesh but is also a major city of the country as it has the Central Administrative Tribunal, high court, headquarters of NCR and divisional railway manager’s office Allahabad.

Despite having three large divisions and being an important railway zone, there was no railway claims tribunal in the jurisdiction of NCR. Officers and employees here often had to go to Lucknow, Gorakhpur or Ghaziabad for their claims settlement.

Realizing this need, NCR GM Rajiv Chaudhry had been raising this issue at Ministry level for quite some time and it is owing to this that the tribunal for Prayagraj was sanctioned, said NCR’s chief public relations officer Ajit Kumar Singh.

In this tribunal, 17 districts including Banda, Bhadohi (Sant Ravidas Nagar), Chandauli, Chitrakoot, Fatehpur, Jalaun, Jaunpur, Jhansi, Kannauj, Kaushambi, Lalitpur, Mahoba, Mirzapur, Pratapgarh, Prayagraj, Sonbhadra and Varanasi are covered.

Besides the tribunal, the administrative head of north zone (technical) will also be based at Prayagraj under whose jurisdiction are RCTs at Chandigarh, Delhi, Gorakhpur and Lucknow.

At present, about 6,300 cases are pending in the RCT bench at Lucknow. After the establishment of the Prayagraj bench, about 1,900 cases related to these 17 districts will be transferred here of which 907 cases have already been transferred.

With a large number of cases at the Lucknow bench, it was taking almost 4-6 years for claimants to get the compensation. However, with the RCT bench at Prayagraj this time period shall is expected to reduce substantially.

PHOTO CAPTION: The inauguration function underway on Sunday. (HT)