Hyderabad: The High Court on Thursday expressed anguish at the lack of cleanliness in Indian Railways and refused to give relief to a contractor of Visakhapatnam whose staff was caught supplying stale and thrown away food items to rail passengers.
A division bench comprising acting Chief Justice Ramesh Ranganathan and Justice Uma Devi was disposing of an appeal by the Divisional Railway Mana-ger (Commercial) of East Coast Railways challenging an interim order granted by a single judge terminating the licence of Mahadev Sales Agencies.
The judges said that they often witnessed beggars and orphans cleaning the bogies and taking money. Rodents were found even in upper class bogies.
Stating that the situation of the train toilets could not be described, the bench asked what the staff was doing without taking steps to maintain cleanliness
This newspaper on August 9, 2017, had reported a viral video which showed that food that had spilled out being refilled into a foil packet at the Vizag station. Railway officials warned the stall licencee and instructed him to disengage the staff involved in the incident. A penalty of Rs 8,000 was imposed on the stall.
The railways later increased the penalty to Rs 1 lakh and issued notice to terminate the contract. The contractor moved the High Court and a single judge while staying the notice said it amounted to a second punishment once penalty had been imposed.
The bench said the contractor could invoke the arbitration clause and dismissed the writ petition of the contractor.
Plea for probe into Jubilee Club
A petition has been moved before the city civil court seeking a direction to the state government to appoint an officer to conduct a comprehensive inquiry into alleged financial irregularities and illegal constructions at the Jubilee Hills Interna-tional Centre (Jubilee Club). Advocate D.V. Shiva Prasad moved the petition alleging that the previous management had completed over 1.2 lakh sq. ft construction against permission for 20,000 sq. ft.
