SC praises Railways’ safety actions, disposes petition

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday appreciated the steps taken by the Indian Railways to prevent train accidents, including the automatic train protection system ‘Kavach’, to avoid collisions.

A bench of Justices Surya Kant and K V Viswanathan disposed of a petition that raised several issues related to passenger safety after taking note of multiple steps taken by the public sector behemoth to prevent accidents and promote safe travel.

While hearing the plea filed by petitioner Vishal Tiwari on January 2, the apex court had sought to know about the protective measures, steps implemented so far or proposed to be taken by the Centre, including the ‘Kavach’ system.

It had asked the petitioner to hand over a copy of his plea to the office of the Attorney General.

Referring to the train accident in Odisha’s Balasore district in June last year that had left 288 people dead, the petitioner had claimed non-implementation of the ‘Kavach’ scheme was resulting in accidents. He had said a lot of accidents have taken place in the past due to collisions

between trains.