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A train in Mumbai
Photo: IMAGO/Hindustan Times
"Two tickets to Moradabad, please."
It probably started like this or something similar, the odyssey of Tungnath Chaturvedi, which began in 1999 at the train station in Mathura Cantonment in northern India - and now, 22 years later, has ended with a judgment in court.
And all for 20 rupees, the equivalent of 25 cents, according to calculations around 45 at the time. Opposite him: a regional company of the Indian state railway company.
In 1999, Chaturvedi bought said tickets for 35 rupees each.
He gave 100 rupees but only got 10 rupees back from the railway employee, Britain's BBC reports.
When pointed out, the employee refused to refund the remaining 20 rupees, angering the man.
Chaturvedi, himself a lawyer, went before a so-called consumer court in Mathura, a special court in India that mainly deals with consumer-related conflicts and complaints, but at the same time is completely overloaded and it is therefore not uncommon for the plaintiff to have ten or 15 years to go before a judgement have to wait.
Appeal to the Supreme Court
"I have attended more than 100 hearings related to this case," Chaturvedi told the BBC.
"But you can't quantify the energy and time I wasted on this case." His family have asked him several times to drop the matter, saying it's just a waste of time.
But the 66-year-old didn't want to give up.
Not even when the railway company wanted to have the case dismissed on the grounds that complaints against the railway should be heard by a special railway arbitration board.
"But we used a 2021 Supreme Court ruling to prove the matter can be heard in a consumer court," Chaturvedi said.
And so it was that Chaturvedi's journey through India's overburdened legal system ended in his favor after 22 years.
The court ordered the railway to reimburse the 20 rupees with 12 percent interest per year from 1999 to 2022 - and also ordered the company to pay a fine of 15,000 rupees (183 euros).
'It's not about the money.
It was always about fighting for justice and fighting corruption, so it was worth it,” Chaturvedi told the BBC.
No one should get away with misconduct, "regardless of the official designation." Tungnath Chaturvedi now hopes that his case will show other people: "You don't have to give up, even if the fight looks tough."
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