‘OK’: Chhattisgarh Station Master’s 2-Letter Word While on Phone Call With Wife Triggers Train Mishap Causing Railways INR 3 Crore Loss and 12-Year-Old Dovorce Battle

Bilaspur, November 8: It took a seemingly perfectly innocuous ‘OK' to upend the life of a railway station master. The man, going through a troubled marriage, uttered the two-letter word to defer a telephonic spat with his wife as he was on duty, but the message also inadvertently reached his colleague, causing major miscommunication and the railways a significant financial loss.

The stationmaster's counterpart on another line misinterpreted his OK, a sign for yes, as a confirmation for sending a train through a Maoist-affected zone during restricted hours, prompting the railways to suspend the former. This was one of the reasons the 40-year-old stationmaster cited in court to seek divorce from his wife. A division bench of Justice Rajani Dubey and Justice Sanjay Kumar Jaiswal of Chhattisgarh High Court recently granted divorce to the stationmaster, a resident of Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh. Station Master Dozes off on Duty, Makes Patna-Kota Express Wait for Half an Hour Near UP's Etawah.

As per the order, the stationmaster married a woman from Durg district in Chhattisgarh, on October 12, 2011. Within a few days, the woman confessed to him that she was in an intimate relationship with another man of Durg. The shaken stationmaster took up the matter with his father-in-law, who promised him that no problem of any kind would arise in the future and he would take responsibility for his daughter's conduct.

Even on their wedding night, the woman kept talking with her lover over the phone and made fun of the husband, the man told the court. The stationmaster told the HC that his wife would talk with her lover at night while he slept right beside her. On the night of March 22, 2012, when the man was on duty, the couple got into a fight over the phone. Since he was at work, the stationmaster said he would come home and talk to her and disconnected the call saying “OK”. Another Train Derailment Attempt Foiled? Loco Pilot of Goods Train Finds Empty Cylinder on Railway Track Between Landaura and Dhandhera in Uttarakhand, Case Registered (See Pic).

His counterpart at Kamaloor railway station in Chhattisgarh's Dantewada district also heard the OK and mistook it as a green signal to dispatch a train during the restricted period in the Maoist-affected zone (train movements are prohibited between 10 pm and 6 am in Naxal-hit pockets). Though there was no untoward incident, the train's movement caused the railways a loss of Rs 3 crore and resulted in the OK-uttering stationmaster's suspension, the court was told.

Subsequently, the stationmaster filed for divorce in the family court in Visakhapatnam. Later, the wife filed a complaint of cruelty and harassment against him and six members of his family in Durg. She also accused him of having an illicit relationship with his sister-in-law. The woman later moved the Supreme Court and got the case transferred to Durg. When the Durg family court rejected the man's divorce petition, he approached Chhattisgarh High Court.

In its order of November 5, the HC noted that the accusation of dowry demand could not be established by the wife as a court in the district has already acquitted all the accused of the charge. The HC also found that the wife falsely accused the stationmaster of having an illicit relationship with his sister-in-law. The conclusion passed by the trial court is not in accordance with the facts and evidence presented in the record, it said.

The appellant/husband is entitled to divorce on the ground of "cruelty", which has been denied by the trial court, the HC said, holding that the trial court's decision was not sustainable. In its order issued in Hindi, the HC said that “the entire act of the wife amounts to ‘cruelty' towards the appellant/husband which forms a full ground for divorce”. The HC overturned the family court's decision and granted the husband's petition for divorce.