New Delhi, Jun 14 (IT): A consumer court in Uttar Pradesh's Saharapur district on Tuesday awarded Rs 13,000 as compensation to a man, five years after he was wrongly ousted from a train.

According to a Times of India report, Vishnu Kant Shukla (73), a retired professor was sent out of Saharanpur-Jaunpur Himgiri Express on November 19, 2013, after a ticket examiner (TTE) noticed that his ticket was dated year 3013.

In an exclusive to TOI, Shukla said, "I retired as head of the Hindi department from JV Jain Degree College in Saharanpur. In short, I am not a person who would travel by train with a fake ticket and here was a TTE who humiliated me in front of everyone, demanded that I pay a penalty of Rs 800, and even got me evicted from the train. It was an important journey as I had to visit my friend whose wife had expired."

The consumer court found the Railways guilty of issuing a wrongly dated ticket to Shukla, thereby exonerating him of shame of travelling on a fraudulent ticket.

After five years, the court slapped a penalty of Rs 10,000 on the Railways for causing mental harassment to the professor and an additional Rs 3,000 as compensation.

The court observed, "To de-board a person of an advanced age in the middle of a journey causes a great amount of physical strain and mental harassment to him. If the passenger did not check his ticket at the counter, this does not absolve the Railways of its responsibility. This clearly shows that there were flaws in services provided by the department."

The railway officials were unavailable for comments.