India, Oct. 16 -- The Orissa High Court has directed the South Eastern Railway to pay Rs.8 lakh as compensation to the parents of a man who died after falling from a passenger train, rejecting the railway's claim that the man had died by suicide.

The court said his death was an "untoward incident" under the Railways Act.

Justice Sanjeeb K Panigrahi set aside a 2021 order of the Railway Claims Tribunal, Bhubaneswar, which rejected the compensation plea filed by the man's parents, observing that the tribunal's finding that their son was not a bona fide passenger was "conjectural and unsustainable."

The deceased was travelling from Manjuri Road to Jaleswar on August 20, 2011, when he fell from the JJKR-Kharagpur passenger train between Ni...