Man's 5-year fight to get ₹ 35 refund from railways helps 3 lakh Indians

RAJASTHAN: A Kota-based man has won his five-year fight to get a ₹ 35 refund from the Railways, helping in the process nearly 3 lakh people who were in a similar situation.

The Railways has approved ₹ 2.43 crore in refunds to 2.98 lakh IRCTC users - many of whom might have brought multiple tickets, according to an RTI reply received by Kota-based engineer Sujeet Swami.

Mr Swami said he filed nearly 50 Right to Information applications and shot off letters to four government departments in his fight to get back ₹ 35 charged as service tax despite cancelling his ticket before the GST regime was implemented.

Mr Swami claimed the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation in its reply to his RTI query said 2.98 lakh users would get refund of ₹ 35 on each ticket amounting to a total of ₹ 2.43 crore.

"My repeated tweets to demand the refund, tagging the PM, Railway minister, Union minister Anurag Thakur, GST Council and the Finance minister played key role in the approval of refund of ₹ 35 to 2.98 lakh users," Mr Swami told PTI.

The 30-year-old engineer had booked a railway ticket from his city to New Delhi in the Golden Temple Mail in April, 2017 to undertake a journey on July 2, a day after the new GST regime came into force.

However, he had cancelled the ticket priced ₹ 765 following which he received a refund of ₹ 665 with a deduction of ₹ 100 instead of ₹ 65 against the cancellation.

He said the extra amount of ₹ 35 was charged to him as service tax even though he had cancelled the ticket prior to the implementation of Goods and Services Tax (GST).

Mr Swami began his fight to obtain the refund of ₹ 35 by sending RTI queries to the Railway and the Ministry of Finance.

According to an RTI reply, the IRCTC citing the commercial circular number 43 of the Ministry of Railways, said for tickets booked before the implementation of GST and cancelled after implementation, service tax charged at the time of booking shall not be refunded.

Therefore, ₹ 100 (Rs 65 as clerical charge and ₹ 35 as service tax) was charged against the cancelled ticket, it said.

However, an RTI reply further said it was later decided that for tickets booked before July 1, 2017, and cancelled, the total amount of service tax charged at the time of booking shall be refunded, Mr Swami said.

"So, a sum of ₹ 35 will be refunded," the IRCTC had said in its reply to Mr Swami's RTI query.

"I, however, received ₹ 33 in my bank account on May 1, 2019 with a deduction of ₹ 2 as the rounded off value of service tax of ₹ 35," Mr Swami said.

Mr Swami's kept on his fight for the next three years to get back ₹ 2 and it finally yielded result on Friday last week.

According to Mr Swami, a senior IRCTC official informed him that the "the Railway Board has approved the refund (of ₹ 35) to all the users (2.98 lakhs) as the process to deposit refund is underway and all the passengers would gradually receive their refund".

Subsequently on the same day, I also received a mail from IRCTC regarding the refund of ₹ 2 which sought the verification of bank account, he said.

The RTI reply which came thereafter stated 2.98 lakh users would get refund of ₹ 35 on each ticket amounting to ₹ 2.43 crore, Mr Swami said.

"I had sent bank account detail and received the refund of ₹ 2 on Monday," he said.

"Following the approval of refund of ₹ 35 to all users, and adding ₹ 100 for my five years of struggle, I have donated ₹ 535 to Prime Minister Cares Fund," Mr Swami said.

"The fight was really long with around 50 RTIs, letters to the Railways, IRCTC, Finance ministry and Service Tax department but eventually I am satisfied as all the users with me would receive refund of ₹ 35 amounting to over ₹ 2.43 crore," he added.

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