Title - Advocate moves HC on emergency quota system misuse in Railway

Alleging misuse in the reservation of tickets under the emergency quota system in the Southern Railways, an advocate today moved the Madras High Court for a direction to the Centre to issue guidelines for selling EQ tickets.

Advocate C Jebakumar George also sought a direction to the Railway Ministry to exclude the second class from the EQ system and ensure that EQ tickets were issued strictly in accordance with the guidelines laid down by the Railway Board.

He demanded that the system be abolished or EQ tickets be granted according to the warrant of precedence. He alleged that except for a negligible percentage, a majority of the tickets were issued under the quota by receiving illegal gratification.

The advocate said following an RTI query, he had received a reply on September 27 last year stating that, on an average 3,600 sleeping berths/seats were issued under the EQ system by the Southern Railways headquarters here in respect of about 100 trains. The petitioner submitted that in keeping with a direction by the High Court, a representation was made to Southern Railways on April 4 last year on the allegations but till date no action had been taken.

When the matter came up for hearing, the First Bench, comprising Chief Justice M Y Eqbal and Justice T S Sivagnanam directed that the petition be listed after six weeks to enable the petitioner to serve notice to Railways, Southern Railways and CBI.