Railways to pay ₹2.5 crores to 3 lakh users

June 1, 2022 Incredible India Valli Sarvani No comments

What do you do if you have to get a refund of ₹35 from anyone? Normally people ignore or leave it. But, this man fought for it, which benefitted nearly three lakh people.

A man from Kota relentlessly fought to get a refund of ₹35 from the Railways. As he won it, it benefitted other people also who were in the same situation.

Sujeet Swami, an engineer, booked a train ticket in April 2017 for his journey on July 2. At that time, the Goods and Services Tax (GST) was not in force (it came into force on July 1).

Later, he cancelled his ticket priced ₹765. He received a refund of ₹665 from the railways after a deduction of ₹100. Out of that, ₹35 was service tax. Swami cancelled his ticket before the implementation of the GST regime. But, the Railways charged him ₹35 before its implementation.

Swami raised the issue. But it was no use. He began fighting to get a refund of ₹35, which was charged as service tax. He sent Right to Information (RTI) queries to the Railways and Ministry of Finance.

The IRCTC, in an RTI reply, said that the service tax of ₹35 would not be refunded. This is because it decided to charge the tax for the tickets booked before the implementation of GST and cancelled after that.

Later in another RTI reply, it said that they decided to refund the service tax amount charged for the tickets booked before the implementation of GST.

Since then, Swami had been fighting. He sent 50 RTI applications to government offices. At last, he was refunded ₹33 in May 2019. But, he continued his fight for the remaining ₹2. Finally, the railways paid ₹2.

Railways decided to pay a refund of ₹35 to all the users who cancelled their tickets in a similar situation. It is going to pay ₹2.43 crores as refunds to 2.98 lakh such users.

Image by Shavi from Pixahive (Free for commercial use / CC0 Public Domain)