Man overcharged 20 rupees for India train ticket wins 22-year legal battle

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/aug/12/man-overcharged-20-rupees-for-india-train-ticket-wins-22-year-legal-battle

by nigerian1981 • 4 years ago

315 162 4 years ago

theguardian.com

politelemon• 4 years ago

I love little cases/stories like this. I think many of us have some things that we will doggedly pursue, which in the greater scheme of things may be small... but it becomes a matter of principal mixed with amusement.

In London our transport network is managed by TFL. Their website lets you search for routes, and in the route options you can go for the fastest route, or choose this option: "Routes with the least changes". Every year on the same date, I would contact them and ask them to change that to "Routes with the fewest changes" and they would respond with something to the effect of "thanks for the feedback, passed it on, go away now".

I think I did this for over 10 years until one day it did get changed on their site. They did accompany it with a greater set of changes, that made the results more convoluted with pointless waypoints that clutter the results, but that's a new matter to pursue.

shawabawa32• 4 years ago

There's no reason to use fewest instead of least here (or fewer instead of less more generally)

A few people have decided to start a strange grammatical crusade on the usage of less and fewer, despite the fact that for all recorded history with the usage of these words up and including modern day, less is used for both countable and uncountable nouns. Some people have a preference for using fewer instead but that doesn't make the usage of less incorrect

barry-cotter• 4 years ago

As a descriptivist[1] I’m sure you understand that languages evolve. Just as the learn/teach distinction was made up by grammarians, so was the least/fewest one. Likewise it stuck. Most attempts at linguistic innovation fail. This one didn’t.

[1] https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/descript...

dahart4• 4 years ago

I’d argue there could be a reason to use ‘least’ over ‘fewer’: they may be intending to emphasize the lesser impact of some changes over others, and not simply be referring to the number of changes that were made. It is possible to have a larger number of changes to a route and still end up with a lower impact to riders than another route than technically has fewer changes.

Completely agree on the language crusade, we have these fads and memes all the time where some people decide there’s only one way and try to forcefully correct others without understanding the history of these words. I have even been guilty of doing this on occasion in the past but have learned over time that language policing is almost never correct. It is not wrong to say “myriad of”. The word “literally” has been used for figurative emphasis for hundreds of years by some of our greatest writers. Responding to a ‘how are you?’ with “I’m good” or “I’m doing good” rather than “well” is not incorrect and does not communicate that you’re an angel. People, all of us I think, are just prone to getting notions about what’s right and wanting to demonstrate our found knowledge, but it’s easy to not be aware of alternatives.

alecst• 4 years ago

I’m a descriptivist as much as the next guy, but fewer to me sounds better with countables. Like I still use things like “less cars” to sound casual but it does sound wrong to my ear.

verisimilitudes• 4 years ago

This is a disgusting perspective. The same people who champion descriptivism conveniently tend also to champion prescriptivism selectively, such as with the transexual madness over pronouns. No, I'm a prescriptivist, and I feel so strongly about it that I'd kill. Languages have rules, damn it, and damn those who disagree with this.

Tell me, do either of us see people championing this for other languages? I don't. I think, if a white man learned Chinese and butchered it, and a Chinese man corrected him, that would be fine. Why is it different for English?

Without prescriptivism, we'll see "Me love you long time" be considered to be as acceptable as "I will love you for a long time" and the very thought sickens me.

dxuh• 4 years ago

My story is not nearly as cool, but one day I could not visit my bank's website via "<bank-name>.tld" and I thought something was broken. After a few days I called and they said that it works fine for them and there was no recent problem and they told me to just type "www.<bank-name>.tld" into my browser, which.. worked. The person on the other end of the phone call clearly thought I did not know how to use a computer (arguably I actually don't, because I did not try out prepending "www." myself). I explained to them that it worked without "www." in the past and this likely was a mistake and they should inform someone, if possible. For a while I called them every couple of months and after about 2 years I finally got someone on the phone that did not think I am being an idiot and calling for something silly and a few days later it was fixed :)

dmd2• 4 years ago

Until a year or so ago 'nasa.gov' didn't work; you had to use 'www.nasa.gov'.

2Gkashmiri6• 4 years ago

you wanna know a secret? well when indian income tax department announced a new web portal, they made a big deal out of it but guess what, they still haven't gotten the memo how incompetent they are and that they know it and don't care.

case in point, www.incometax.gov.in works but incometax.gov.in does not.

haven't you learned in domain setup tutorials to set your A records straight? i guess they didn't and its been like 1.5/2 years and its still a problem. go figure

petesergeant2• 4 years ago

I bitched and whined about Google Flight service being useless for searching for long business class flights with a change in them, because it would assume you were fine with the shorter leg being in economy -- even if the shorter leg ended up being 7 hours long. I did eventually get one of their PMs on LinkedIn to apparently take it seriously, but I note it's still very broken on their site putting in a Vancouver to Bangkok flight (10hr in J YVR-NRT, 7hr in Y NRT-BKK)

cesarb4• 4 years ago

If you're really old-school, you know that it makes sense to require the "www" prefix. Why should the machine pointed to by the bare domain be the web server, instead of for instance the FTP server or the Gopher server? It's not necessarily the same machine which provides all these protocols, and putting the web server there is privileging one protocol over another.

Of course, that ship has long sailed; everyone uses HTTP now, even for things where it doesn't make sense, and one should at least have a tiny web server pointed to by the bare domain which redirects to the correct "www"-prefixed address. The fate of bare domains was sealed when browsers started prefixing "www." and suffixing ".com" whenever one typed a bare word in the address bar.

dt123• 4 years ago

but it becomes a matter of principal mixed ...

principle

dahart4• 4 years ago

They did accompany it with a greater set of changes

Doesn’t your wording here clarify why using ‘fewer’ might actually be incorrect from their point of view? You’re referring to changes that are qualitatively larger, just like TFL may have been trying to communicate changes that are qualitatively smaller, routes with less noticeable changes to a smaller number of riders, or even a smaller number of rider-trips, without having to include an explanatory paragraph. The number of changes might be irrelevant to most people, and it’s a good thing if TFL is trying to tell you whether statistically you should expect to notice changes based on your usage, and not whether the potentially somewhat meaningless total number of changes is lower.

‘Least’ is a word that allows subjective interpretation, while ‘fewer’ is not. Saying ‘fewer changes’ implies something more specific than saying ‘least changes’, and in making it more specific it may literally communicate the wrong thing.

riverdweller• 4 years ago

Fewest is the correct word. There is no subjectivity about it.

They could have said (albeit hideously): "The routes with the least change". In this case, change is an uncountable noun.

But they didn't. They said "The routes with the least changeS", which uses the plural of the countable noun "change". So quantifier "fewest" is correct. The quantifier "least" is not.

IanCal2• 4 years ago

You’re referring to changes that are qualitatively larger,

No, a change in this context (TFL messaging on result) very explicitly means getting off the train and onto another one, possibly at a different station. The GPs use of "changes" later just refers to changes in the UI.

The number of changes might be irrelevant to most people

The number of changes is a key bit of information to everyone as it's vital to how you actually get to your destination.

Silverback_VII2• 4 years ago

I don’t think great minds engage in such small battles. It's a matter of time to not fight over some negligible matter of principle. time is limited for us all and is way too valuable to be wasted for such petty pursuits.

the_jeremy• 4 years ago

Like obliquely insulting people on Hacker News?

yumraj• 4 years ago

but it becomes a matter of principal mixed with amusement.

I'll say it's more likely to be amusement or entertainment value, something to distract us from our mundane lives, and perhaps some PR value as well.

If I were a lawyer, I wouldn't mind doing this, provided the cost, including time spent, is not too much.

nine_k• 4 years ago

I see "least charges" as a correct way to say "the smallest sum of charges". "Fewest charges" would mean to me "being charged as few times as possible". In London subway it's normally two times.

So, "least charges", but "fewest transfers" or "fewest stops".

Aeolun• 4 years ago

Absolutely not a hill worth dying on, but I can’t help but be impressed with the tenacity.

teddyh• 4 years ago

All progress depends on the unreasonable man.

lbriner2• 4 years ago

But what progress here?

Someone who worked for us 20 years+ ago charged you too much. Sorry, it wouldn't happen now.

Tepix2• 4 years ago

Just imagine how great that must have felt!

Kankuro• 4 years ago

Or he was just trapped in the sunk cost fallacy ("I spent so much time that I cannot stop now even if it is not worth")

shmde2• 4 years ago

My granddad had to fight a case for more than 30 years because the tenant wouldn't leave. 30 fucking years just to get back a house which he bought. The only mistake he made was buying the house with the tenants still inside. They even went onto to take the deal outside the court where we would pay 1/4 of the house price to make them leave the house.

Indian legal battles stretch for so long that many times people die without hearing a judgement for the case but my granddad was lucky enough to get the house back a few years before he died.

Tepix2• 4 years ago

Is there a way (money?) to speed things up?

spaceman_20204• 4 years ago

You can pay clerks to move your file around but the judiciary is so overloaded and understaffed that unless yours is a high priority or high profile case, it will just need to wait its turn. Which can be months in between hearings.

spaceman_20204• 4 years ago

My FIL has a similar story of a piece of land that was stolen by someone. He filed the case in 2011. No progress yet.

Real estate is the riskiest asset class in India

vinay_ys• 4 years ago

Possession is 9/10th of the law.

sidewndr46• 4 years ago

This happens in the US as well, for example https://www.foxnews.com/us/long-island-man-who-hasnt-paid-hi...

bananapear• 4 years ago

What would have happened if he had paid some intimidating people to forcibly evict the tenants and take possession?

shmde2• 4 years ago

Yes people do that, you need to have a bit of local political connections and make donations every now and then for festive events/blood donation camps etc for them to even consider sending goons on your behalf. Even though we used to joke around about hiring thugs to evict them we are pretty law abiding citizens who want no trouble. But it was sad to see grandad go to the court every other weekend when I used to come to his house for summer break.

Tijdreiziger2• 4 years ago

The only mistake he made was buying the house with the tenants still inside.

I'm not sure how strong tenant protection is in India, but here in the Netherlands, it's well-understood that purchasing a property is not a valid reason to evict its tenants. Rental properties are sold and purchased with the understanding that they are investments, and that the property owners will not be able to live there (unless the tenants voluntarily leave).

boomboomsubban5• 4 years ago

I wonder how quickly he would have dropped the case if he had any more dire need of the court system over the past twenty years.

manholio• 4 years ago

This is not a story about tenacity or an overloaded court system. It's a story about deliberate bad governance to keep corruption money flowing in an impoverished country.

The political leadership could easily find solutions to stop such abuses of the public legal system, and direct resources to high priority cases with large public impact. By deliberately allowing such cases to bog down the justice system and waste limited public resources, they ensure rule of law cannot operate effectively. It's a typical story.

obscur• 4 years ago

Interesting perspective, where did you read about this?

cm42• 4 years ago

Ever since we tossed out Divine Right, our overlords have had to resort to increasingly-inscrutable systems to do the needful, and inscrutable systems are effectively the same as "no system" in this regard.

I tire of hearing excuses like "our judges can't adjudicate simple matters in fewer than three generations [because they are busy and have A Hard Job]", or "we can't have healthcare because the sous chef du jour did not include it on the menu, and we must respect the venerable and time-honored tradition of the sous chef du jour in designing the menu"

Just once, I'd rather hear them say "Obama of Nantucket relayed a vision in which 12 great dragons appeared, all pissed about the price of oil, the upcoming NATO summit, the Franklin County Republican primaries, and the wearing of pocket squares with striped suits. On healthcare, saith the Orange Dragon: put an onion in your sock and go to MedExpress if you get sick, and you'll probably be fine."

Even if nothing substantive changed, at least the comments sections and over-the-shoulder graphics on the news would be cooler, anyway.

spaceman_20204• 4 years ago

I have immense respect for people like this.

They fight tiny battles and when they win, they benefit everyone.

lbriner2• 4 years ago

Does it really benefit anyone? Massive organisations like the Indian railways don't blink at a fine of $160 and they certainly aren't going to change anything. Presumably most people don't get over-charged so there isn't necessarily anything they can improve anyway.

boomboomsubban5• 4 years ago

And there is a clear cost to society, as 100 hearings isn't exactly cheap.

spaceman_20204• 4 years ago

I don’t know what the particulars of this case were, but a lot of similar cases led to companies being forced to adopt more consumer-friendly policies.

Like this story of a man who fought for a similar amount which ended up forcing the railways to refund hundreds of thousands to thousands of people:

https://www.news18.com/news/business/a-5-year-fight-with-rai...

Another case I remember off the top of my head was vendors charging beyond MRP for beverages in airports. Someone fought that in court over years and as a result, every vendor is now forced to sell bottled beverages at MRP now.

noisy_boy3• 4 years ago

If there is any chance that this very public news has caused even an iota of embarrassment to the publicity-sensitive government and maybe a review of similar useless cases underway, it is well worth it.

balderdash3• 4 years ago

I feel like he should also get lawyers fees

lom• 4 years ago

He represented himself

yjftsjthsd-h• 4 years ago

His time isn't free, so a person could reasonably make the argument still. Granted, I'm not sure how that would look exactly.

balderdash3• 4 years ago

he is a lawyer, he spent time on this case, theoretically at the expense of other work, why shouldn't he be paid his normal hourly rate?

linux_devil2• 4 years ago

Me and my friends often debate as most of the cases follow certain pattern, it should be easier to categories the majority of the cases and if not fully but partially automate the process.

Most of the paper work(judiciary / non judiciary) involves similar template , SSH/SSA , agreements etc. It need not be this complex. Most of the manual work involved in the process should be automated

poisonborz• 4 years ago

> The case highlights India’s overloaded court system, where around 40m cases are clogging up the system. Legal cases have been known to take 10-15 years to reach a conclusion.

Most interesting tidbit for me. Is this really true?

prasadjoglekar• 4 years ago

Yes. Part of the reason is that lower courts have a very lenient attitude towards no-shows that encourages continual postponement of cases. Any random excuse like "my lawyer has a stomach ache" will delay the hearing to the next date. It's then not a surprise that many folks use this to delay out of malice.

paskozdilar• 4 years ago

I don't know about India, but it really is the case in less-developed countries. The sluggishness of the legal system is a catalyst to corruption - so anyone can do anything, and suing is useless because the case won't even be heard until years later.

The only way anyone is gonna get sued is because of such "stubborn" individuals that keep on going. But alas, a few individuals can't fix the whole system.

lokar• 4 years ago

This is a main reason corporations choose Delaware. Fast predictable outcomes to litigation.

linux_devil2• 4 years ago

Yes it is true, and this is just one small example which managed to get some news . Cases drag for years and years , there are hearings etc. Unless something gets in the news or fast tracked , legal battles seems never ending in most of the cases.

pseudostem• 4 years ago

Absolutely, a more interesting tidbit is this -

Telecom companies cannot take small subscribers to court in India. You don't pay your bills, they can send legal notices, but not much beyond that. We have ~1B+ subscribers. Even if a small percentage goes into dispute, our judicial system will completely collapse.

drexlspivey2• 4 years ago

A lot of countries are like this, the main reason justice is swift in the US is the out-of-court settlement scheme where 95%-99% of the cases don’t reach trial.

tecoholic• 4 years ago

I am not sure about the 40m cases. But the 10-15 years is true. The civil cases in the country can drag on for a generation or more. I have personally witnessed one such case where the plaintiff has died of old age.

mfrye0• 4 years ago

Yes. One of my friends is a lawyer in India.

He shared a story with me of a particular lawyer that ends up being paid millions of dollars per hour, because he's able to leverage his connections to help corporate clients jump to the front of the line.

fillskills• 4 years ago

Yes, sadly this is true and one of the biggest bottlenecks in India. There are many ways (bribing and legal) to delay a case. I have known cases to last 20-30 years because more time will benefit one of the parties. For example if a rich person sues a poor person, lets say for an inherited property, the rich person benefits from making the case go longer. They dont even have to have a valid case, just after enough delays, the poor person is going to move on. Replace 'poor' above with any disadvantaged group.

Edit: The rich/powerful people give a return of their "winnings" to the judges/court-employees. This is one of the main reasons for delays on cases that can be easily closed.

jonatron• 4 years ago

I'm currently over 2 months and 4 emails into a battle to get a tiny amount of compensation for a train delay in the UK. Similar situation, it's not about the money, it's the principle.

dmos62• 4 years ago

Equally surprising was that Indian Railways, the country’s largest employer, chose to continue fighting the case.

If you think it's crazy for this lone lawyer to have gone through this crusade, keep in mind that Indian Railways fought in a 100 hearings for ~25 cents, and their lawyers don't work for free. How bonkers is that?

csomar• 4 years ago

Not that bonkers really. I think the manager or responsible party is legally required to exhaust all options before refunding. It’s not about the money but about covering his bases.

ssizn• 4 years ago

It’s a public company. They don’t give a shit about wasting money.

anigbrowl2• 4 years ago

I know nothing about the Indian legal system other than it draws a lot from the British one, but generally in cases like this the seemingly obtuse behavior is to prevent a precedential decision that others might refer to.

If they are suddenly on hook for refunds in a way they weren't before, there's a loss of potential future revenue and the additional cost of refund issuance bureaucracy. In a country the size of india even a 0.1% overcharge rate could add up to significant money. I can see why they would want to limit customers to disputing prices at the time of ticket issue.

It's not hard to find examples of private companies litigating over matters that seem superficially petty.

99_00• 4 years ago

Makes perfect sense if you have any experience with Indian Railways or bureaucracy. It's even worse than American bureaucracy.

noisy_boy3• 4 years ago

Indian Railways probably have inhouse counsels who get paid the same salary irrespective of the no. of cases handled.

closetohome• 4 years ago

I think real justice would include an absolutely enormous fine to the company for tying up 20 years of court resources over a case they were clearly wrong about.

The plaintiff may not have incurred any legal costs, but the railway certainly cost the court a lot of money over the years.

ErikVandeWater• 4 years ago

If you prove it takes 20 years to successfully sue you, you can get away with just about anything.

ezoe• 4 years ago

If their lawyer is an employee of them, no extra cost.

2Gkashmiri6• 4 years ago

i am a legal practitioner operating in these courts and let me be the party pooper, cases like these are the reason why the judiciary is fucked shit.

courts in india have like 100 year backlog or something crazy amount. reason? i get the whole "principle" thing but get in line.

because of "principled people" like this man, inmates incarcerated for 10+ years without a trial are being delayed because once admitted, each case has to be completed to the full and these shall i say "worthless petty cases" are one of the causes of delay. want to know how much delay? apparently the case, over 22 years had over 100 hearing. that means, the 100 times the court was in session, some other case got pushed back, just a tiny bit but over 100 times, that counts to a lot.

now, i am not saying people should not fight for "principle" but when you are being pompous assholes for fighting over pennies while innocent men and women are being subjected to horrendous conditions in indian jails or thousands of victims of sexual crimes or other more serious issue, these principled people are causing the delay.

why dont you do arbitration whereby you go outside the traditional court system and fight your battles however long you like. why are they holding up courts?

jopython2• 4 years ago

Maybe you should be complaining about not having enough judges to investigative the 40 millions pending cases?!

em-bee• 4 years ago

fair point. but why does it take 100 hearings to resolve a case like this?

2Gkashmiri6• 4 years ago

legal incompetence, bureaucracy, case load of judges, yada yada.

the judge looks at his calender, thinks "hmm, how about 3 months from now".

on that date, either of the lawyers says "judge, i need more time for an affidavit, why dont you give me 4 more months"...... on and on..

oh, btw, the next time the court does hear your case, its a different judge so you have to explain it once again and then the judge goes "next hearing date 4 months"....

JSavageOne• 4 years ago

It is not this man's fault your country has a 100 year backlog on court cases, it is your country's fault. Take responsibility for your country's failure in managing its judicial system efficiently rather than trying to scapegoat a man who was ripped off by your country's railway system.

abc_lisper• 4 years ago

Hear you! This sort of unprincipled pragmatism, that overlooks any long term benefit over short term inconvenience is pretty much how things are done in India.

2Gkashmiri6• 4 years ago

how is the court at fault here? i just said if the case is admitted, it has to run its course. why did the other side not budge in the first place? why did it take them 22 years and a court to tell them they were wrong? didn't they know that?

they did and they still didn't care. that is the problem, not the courts per se.

sonthonax• 4 years ago

Hacker News is really going to the dogs. This comment shouldn't be downvoted. It's a dissenting viewpoint that comes from a vastly more informed place than the top comment which is a petty-minded justice boner about 'principle'.

nobodyandproud• 4 years ago

The US has small claims courts, that expedite these sorts of issues.

Does India have something similar?

wccrawford• 4 years ago

Why blame the person who was wronged, instead of the company that wronged him?

If they had just given up, none of that needed to happen. Why is that not your focus for fixing the courts?

sokoloff• 4 years ago

IMO, the stubborn party who is in the wrong is far more to blame than the principled party who is in the right.

pseudolus• 4 years ago

Periodically stories emerge about cases in Indian courts that have been pending for centuries. [0]. Such cases, not only in India, have also been the fodder for literature, including Charles Dicken's "Bleak House" set against the backdrop of the interminable fictional probate case "Jarndyce v Jarndyce" which is implied to have lasted for generations.

[0] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-21446272

mherdeg• 4 years ago

A piece of Internet culture I miss dearly is the FatWallet Finance forums, which had an ongoing thread called "kinship proceedings: what can go wrong": https://web.archive.org/web/20171009102701/https://www.fatwa...

When Rakuten finally shuttered the forums I think the thread was about 13 years old; it was about a minor estate (mid 7 figures??) from someone who died inestate being divided up among an extended family, complicated by a random multi-year pause in the proceedings while no lawyers did anything to advance the case, and by the periodic appearance of purported long-lost relatives.

I have no idea what happened there and I'll always wonder. I do see that one of the bureaucrats from the thread was in the news ( https://nypost.com/2013/06/29/administrators-mishandled-more... ).

carabiner• 4 years ago

He has truly done the needful.

adharmad• 4 years ago

"Equally surprising was that Indian Railways, the country’s largest employer, chose to continue fighting the case."

There needs to be some sort of common sense oversight in the Raliways (and most probably in other Indian government organizations also).

Also I wonder on what grounds the Railways was fighting on? The prices of the tickets are well known and widely published, and even though they do change over time, a lawyer like Chaturvedi would have kept all documentation.

88• 4 years ago

De minimis non curat lex

robaye• 4 years ago

It helps he’s a lawyer. I don’t know if it would be worth fighting for that amount over 22 years and paying a lawyer at the same time.

akudha3• 4 years ago

This case is extra special, as anyone who has ever dealt with any Indian bureaucracy can attest to. I went to my university for some paperwork (years after I had gotten my degree) - I was treated like a leper and openly asked for a bribe.

This man is a hero! As he says, it is not about the money

foobazzy• 4 years ago

Reminds of the time I had an argument over the phone with a guy from a UPI app (PhonePe). There was a hack going around on dormant accounts. I had one account with them which was (maybe?) used only a few times.

I called customer care and asked if they could delete my account. They said, and I quote, "due to RBI regulations, we can't". Naturally, I asked "which regulation document? do you have a number?". The other person did not have an answer and escalated my call. They said they would get back to me and in the meantime, I read all the regulations there were. The regulations clearly stated that issuers shall give an option to close the account at any time. There was no such option in the app.

I pressed again to close the account to prevent misuse and/or fraud. The person on the other end of the call asked me (beratingly) to logout and delete the app. Because it was the same as deleting the account. I argued that it is not the same thing. To which his tone was more or less like, [my words, this is how it sounded] "you blithering idiot, you blasphemous imbecile, do you know how miniscule you are in the grand scheme of things. I am God here and you should bow down to my superiority and accept my solution"

I wonder if I should have sued.

noisy_boy3• 4 years ago

Simply filing a complaint with the office of the ombudsman[0] would have sufficed. My friend made a complaint regarding misbehavior by a banking official and the branch manager called in a few days grovelling apologies.

[0] https://rbi.org.in/Scripts/Complaints.aspx

InnerGargoyle• 4 years ago

you should have at least complained to consumer forum.

and for insult case, in court, am sure you will get your revenge by 2042..

renewiltord• 4 years ago

It's worth noting that in the Indian judicial system a large number of judges are related to previous judges. There is a system where the previous judges appoint subsequent ones, which results in widespread nepotism.

The length of the battle comes from an overcrowded judicial system which has many reasons like this to be overcrowded via constraint of supply.

Supply constraint mechanisms are a way for labour to extract value from society. It happens with the AMA here and the judiciary there.

wahern• 4 years ago

A law professor who consulted around the world on transactional banking law with litigants and even courts recounted a sardonic bit of legal advice from India: Always pick a lawyer with a son. (Because the case will outlive the first lawyer, and better that it's passed on to someone with familiarity.)

seanhandley• 4 years ago

If ever I saw a story of the Sunk Cost Fallacy in action, this is it.

You have to value your time and energy. 22 years of hearings for such a small amount of money really isn't worth it.

There was a time in my life when I would probably have fought this on principle, but I value my time a lot more now.

NaturalPhallacy• 4 years ago

The needful hath been done.

jmclnx• 4 years ago

I admire what he did, we should have more people in the world like him.

echan00• 4 years ago

The real winners are the lawyers of the train company

davidg109• 4 years ago

Love this story. The sheer level of stubbornness by some companies and and then the energy they spend fighting back, when they are clearly in the wrong, is mind-blowing. I’ve had my own battles, and it’s this kind of story that reminds me sometimes the energy is worth it.

Man overcharged 20 rupees for India train ticket wins 22-year legal battle

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