Bar
& Bench: Nagpur: Sunday, 03 January 2016.
In 1989,
Samir Zaveri lost both his legs in an accident on the Mumbai suburban railways.
Twenty-five years later, he is waging a war to ensure no one else does.
Abhi maar
diya ghanti toh kya karoo? [Now that I belled the cat, what can I do?] (laughs)
Its a quick, hurried laugh. One of the first things that strike you about Samir
Zaveri is his energy, this very real (and rushed) desire to do something.
Anything. Barely has he finished his laugh, that he launches into the next
case, the next PIL, the next scam, reeling out provisions of the law with a
startling amount of ease.
Hailing from
Pathan in Gujarat, Zaveri was barely 19 years old when he lost his legs in a
train accident on the Mumbai suburban railway network.
It is a
network (also referred to as the “local”) of more than twelve hundred daily
services across three lines – Western, Central and Harbour.
As per an
Observer Research Foundation report published in 2015, the locals transport 75
lakh people on a daily basis.
Including
Zaveri.
“Back then I
would travel in the disabled compartment and meet other people who had
accidents. When I would ask them what happened, the maximum number of people
would say that this was because of the train accident. Then I did some more
research and realised how many people die every day, how many accidents take
place every day. The [bigger] picture began to emerge.”
This “bigger”
picture is terrifying: in 2014, roughly 3,500 people died while travelling on
the Mumbai locals, with more than 3,800 injured. That is more than ten reported
deaths every single day of the year. And an equal number of injured.
Worse, Zaveri
says that these deaths are preventable.
“I started
with the Constitution of India which our Railway Ministers swear to uphold.
Article 21 is Right to life. But here, God knows how many people are dying. So
where is this protection of life?”
Through RTI
applications, Zaveri began to dig out more and more information, such as the
number of ambulances available, the kinds of medicines that are kept with a
stationmaster etc. It wasn’t easy though. Not only did he have to face passive
and active stonewalling, he also had to fight the pressure exerted by railway
officials. And despite his written correspondences, and appeals, many a time he
would be ignored.
Which is when
he decided to approach the courts. In fact, this decision was spurred on by one
of the greats of the Bombay Bar, Jamshed Cama.
“I met Cama
saab through a common friend. I told him about how so many accidents are taking
place but the authorities have simply failed to take any action. His first
reaction was “So many people are dying? Lets do this” and he did it free of
cost. In fact, he told me try and learn about law.
Then I learnt
about the RTI Act through people like Shailesh Gandhi who is my guru. [The RTI
Act] is the best thing to happen. Whatever queries I would file before the
Railways, I would submit the reply before the Bombay High Court.”
In 2008, he
filed his first public interest litigation before the Bombay High Court. The
goal of the petition was to ensure immediate medical treatment to accident
victims.
“One of the
reasons for accidents was over crowding, the other was that there was no scope
for immediate medical aid For instance right opposite Virar Railway station,
there is a private hospital. But instead victims would be taken 35 kms away to
a government hospital via train. During that “golden hour” no medical treatment
could be provided. Most people would die due to loss of blood by the time they
reached the hospital.”
In January
2009, the then Chief Justice Swatanter Kumar directed the Maharashtra
government to provide ambulances at railway stations free of cost. Six years
later, in March 2014, the government finally started 937 ambulance services.
But issues
such as lack of ambulances, and platform heights – both of which have received
considerable media attention – are not the only problems Zaveri has tackled
head on.
There are
smaller, yet no less significant issues, such as making sure that first aid
emergency box (present at each station) was used.
“As per an
RTI response, this [first aid] box is to have 66 medicines. So I asked how many
times was this box used? The reply came that the first aid box can only be
opened by a doctor. There is some merit there, after all the Station Master cannot
have medical training as well.”
Through the
High Court’s intervention, an Emergency Medical Room was set up in 2011 at Dadar station, one of the busier
junctions. Almost immediately, the number of fatalities reduced. The court has
recently directed the establishment of EMR’s in 27 more stations.
Earlier this
year, there was a tie up with Fortis Healthcare, through which injured
passengers would be provided free medical attention.
But even
here, success was not easy to find. Zaveri speaks about consent orders being
appealed (resulting in a delay of two years), contradictory and vague
affidavits, and an official machinery that simply refuses to accept
responsibility.
And a society
that is unable (or unwilling?) to fight.
“See the
public is anyway harassed, what with increasing costs, this and that. People
say, “Who will bell the cat? I belled the cat and I saw what happens. Abhi maar
diya ghanti toh kya karoo? (laughs)”
And although
courts do provide some succour, very often it is too little too late. He gives
the example of Madhuri Anil Thalakiya, who lost her husband in a railway
accident in 2001.
In September
2013, the Bombay High Court overturned the finding of the Railway Tribunal
which had dismissed Madhuri’s compensation claim. The High Court awarded
compensation of Rs. 4 lakh plus interest.
“I tell people, Look she got justice, they ask
me “Bhaisaab how long did it take?” I tell them 12 years, they say “Namaste”
and leave. We need more courts, more judges. Like the RTI where we are supposed
to get replies within 30 days else the officer will face penalties. If courts
are able to adjudicate quickly, only then will people go there.”
And to add to
this is the geographic distance between the Railway Minister (whose Ministry
overseas the locals), and the city of Mumbai.
“Railway
Ministers of different States would never be able to understand how Mumbai
suburban works. They have to come here, use the railways and then they may be
able to understand. See there is so much difference. Suburban trains pick up
train so quickly, passengers disembark and get on the train.”
This lack of
“local” knowledge is despite the fact that the Mumbai locals generate a
substantial amount of money for the Indian Railways. Zaveri says that as per
the Railway’s own figures, the Mumbai locals generated 1,500 crore as surplus
revenue; but “all of it goes to Delhi, nothing comes back.”
The Mumbai
locals also generate substantial revenue of the illegal kind; says Zaveri, Yaha
malai hai malai
In 2010,
Zaveri filed a PIL against the “fake bail bond” scam of Kurla station. An
unmarked passage connects the local station to the LTT Terminus – passengers
using this passage would be accused of trespass, and produced before a “court”.
“An RPF
halwaldar would pretend to be a magistrate, have a fake magistrate’s seal. Bail
bonds of five hundred rupees would be issued – all fake. Now of course,
everyone from the bottom to the top must have known whats going on.”
Then there
was the case of a prostitution racket run from the Railway’s rest house on
Marine Lines railway station.
“Two years
ago, I had submitted an article about Marine Lines Station. There is a
three-storey rest house for railways officials. Five Star. There, a full-time
brothel was being run. There are CCTV cameras. You think the vigilance
departments would not have known about this?
Finally, the
Mumbai police raided and caught them. What should be done is not being done.
What should not being done is being done.”
So what keeps
the man going? A number of things. One, officials within the railways, the
“good guys” who are silent but willing to help.
“The good
officers have begun to associate with me, to talk to me. Now obviously they
could not do so openly. But there are good people, some very good people.
Otherwise the railways would have been finished a long, long time ago.”
Two, his
belief that the problems are not unsurmountable.
“I am an SSC
pass from a Gujarati medium school. I am not a well read man but I know nothing
is impossible. Why cant we take care of overcrowding through technology? There
is that saying na, where there is a will there is a way?”
Three, his
faith in the judiciary.
“With two
hundred and fifty rupees, I can file a PIL. No matter how big anyone is, I can fight against them in open court, the
hearing is in open court. If you are not satisfied with an order, you can go in
appeal.”
Four, perhaps
the most powerful reason of them all, is his desire to give back to society.
“During my
accident, it was the public that took me to the hospital. They ended up saving
my lifeI never got the chance to thank them, I never met them again. Today, I
am doing something to help them back. That is the ultimate goal.”
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