Ulwe youth fined Rs 26,000 for assaulting ticket-checker

MUMBAI: In a rare case, a sessions court has imposed a fine of Rs 21,000 on a passenger and asked him to pay another Rs 5,000 as compensation to a train ticket inspector (TTI) who was manhandled after the accused was asked to pay the penalty for travelling without a valid ticket.
On February 4, 2020, TTI Joseph Peterappa and his colleague Sunil Kurane asked a 25-year-old Ulwe resident travelling in a first class coach of a Panvel-CSMT train for his ticket. They said he could not produce a valid ticket and asked him to pay the fine.
The youth was deboarded at Seawoods station, where he showed a photo of a ticket booked on the UTSonmobile app. According to railway rules, a photo of the mobile ticket is considered invalid, and the checkers insisted on the fine. This angered the youth who manhandled Peterappa, who lodged an FIR at Vashi station.
In his order last month, additional sessions judge, city civil court, Dr S D Tawshikar said the accused was 25 then and did not have criminal antecedents. Moreover, "it appears the accused had purchased the monthly pass by using UTS App, however, he was not carrying his mobile in which the app was downloaded". This created confusion, and matters escalated leading to the manhandling and subsequent filing of FIR.
"Thus, considering the overall nature of the dispute and the consequent offence, I find it would be in the interest of justice not to impose sentence of imprisonment. I find this to be a fit case wherein a fine of Rs 20,000 would be just and proper (under section 353 of IPC; assault on on-duty public servant). So far as offence under section 147 of the Railways Act is considered, accused needs to pay fine of Rs 1,000," said the ruling.
The judge also asked the accused to pay Rs 5,000 to Peterappa, who has "suffered physical as well as mental agony out of the alleged incident under section 357 (1) (b) of Criminal Procedure Code".
The case evoked many responses from UTS app users. Ghatkopar resident Rohan E L said often the app gets stuck. In that case, the TTE should consider the screenshot or photo of a valid ticket if it matches with the I-card details provided for KYC at the time of booking the ticket.
Sandesh Kotian said when he had to change phone handsets he had taken a screenshot of the season ticket for future reference. "I had UTS login issues on the new phone. The railways should come out with a mechanism to validate the credentials based on the screenshot of the mobile ticket in case of genuine problems like I faced."