MUMBAI, May 5 -- Nearly 17 years after a 16-year-old boy died after falling from a crowded suburban train at Jogeshwari station, the Bombay High Court on Monday granted compensation up to Rs.8 lakh to his parents, holding that the death resulted from an "accidental fall from a moving train" and not while crossing railway tracks, as claimed by Western Railway. A single-judge bench of Justice Jitendra Jain directed the boy's parents to file a fresh claim before the Railway Claims Tribunal. It also directed Western Railway to deposit Rs.4 lakh with 6% annual interest from the date of the accident in 2009, and ordered that the total compensation be capped at Rs.8 lakh, payable within 12 weeks. The deceased, Arogyaraj Chetiyar, who did odd jobs for a living, was travelling from Goregaon to Churchgate in a crowded local train with a friend in search of work on June 20, 2009, according to his parents' lawyer, Vaneet Khosla. At around 2.13 pm, he fell from the train near Jogeshwari station and was taken to hospital, where he succumbed to his injuries later that night. Arogyaraj's parents, Rayappa and Victorya Chetiyar, had filed a compensation claim before the Railway Claims Tribunal, which was rejected in 2016 after the railways contended that he died while crossing the tracks. The Chetiyars then approached the high court in 2017, challenging the tribunal's order. According to their petition, a valid train ticket to travel from Goregaon to Churchgate was found on Arogyaraj, making him a bona fide passenger. They also relied on the testimony of his friend, who told the tribunal that Arogyaraj fell from a fast local near Jogeshwari due to excessive rush. The high court ruled in the Chetiyars' favour, saying the tribunal "gravely erred in not considering crucial evidence" of Arogyaraj's friend. "...in this case, the accident is of the year 2009, and we are in the year 2026, and the tribunal has not considered crucial evidence. Therefore, to avoid any further delay, this court itself is examining the crucial evidence," it said. The court rejected the railways' contention that the presence of nearby slums indicated that the deceased may have been crossing the tracks. "Merely because the spot is common for people to cross the railway tracks, it would not mean that at the time of the accident, the deceased was crossing the track," justice Jain said....