MADURAI: The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court recently dismissed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) petition filed in 2016, seeking a direction to add more unreserved general coaches, including unreserved general coaches for women and persons with disabilities (PwD), to the Pandian Superfast Express train.
The litigant R Rajaselvan, an advocate from Dindigul, stated that the Pandian Superfast Express, an overnight express train which runs between Madurai and Chennai, operates daily and covers a distance of nearly 467 km. Though it originally had 24 coaches (including three unreserved general compartment and one unreserved general compartment for women), the number of coaches was reduced to 22 after it got a pair of Linke Hofmann Busch (LHB) rakes in August 2016.
Of these 22 coaches, only two coaches are unreserved and there is no specific compartment for women and PwD passengers, he added. Claiming that the commuters have been experiencing inconvenience due to the decrease in number of unreserved coaches, he sought the above direction.
However, the railway authorities filed a counter affidavit stating that the existing station platform length could not accommodate more than 22 LHB coaches. "Hence, the number of coaches was reduced from 24 to 22. If two more coaches are attached, then it would have to be halted outside the platform, which may cause inconvenience to the pass
Further, they filed an additional counter affidavit stating that they were planning to balance this by increasing the unreserved capacity of Pearl City Express by providing one additional unreserved general second class coach. The said proposal has been approved by the general manager of Southern Railway, the additional counter affidavit mentioned. Recording this, a bench of justices D Krishnakumar and R Vijayakumar dismissed the petition.