Supreme Court Orders Insurance for All Railway Counter Tickets from 27 October

The Supreme Court has directed Indian Railways to extend travel insurance to every ticket sold at station counters from 27 October 2026. The coverage must match the terms already available to passengers who book online and pay a small additional premium.

A bench of Justices Ahsanuddin Amanullah and R. Mahadevan issued the order on 6 October while hearing a petition filed after the June 2023 Odisha train accident. The court noted that online passengers already receive optional insurance. Passengers who buy tickets at counters, often from lower-income groups, do not. The Centre had told the court on 11 May that a decision to extend the facility had been taken and that implementation details were being worked out. The bench found that no meaningful progress had followed.

The order states that all counter tickets sold at every railway station shall carry insurance on the same terms as online tickets, effective 27 October. The Railway Board is held directly responsible for compliance. Failure to implement the direction will be attributed to the Board.

The same proceedings examined broader passenger safety measures, including foot overbridges, track fencing, and the Kavach automatic train protection system. The court expressed dissatisfaction with the pace of those projects as well. On insurance, however, it set a fixed deadline rather than accepting further assurances.

At present, IRCTC offers optional travel insurance when passengers pay for reserved tickets online. The premium is nominal. Counter ticket holders have no equivalent option. The court observed that the majority of passengers who travel by train, particularly those without reliable internet access or digital payment facilities, buy tickets at reservation counters. Extending insurance to them removes a distinction the bench described as unjustified after sufficient time had been given for preparation.

Railways must now create a mechanism that applies the same coverage automatically or through a simple process at every counter. The order does not specify the exact premium or the claims process, but it requires parity with the existing online product. The Railway Board is expected to issue instructions to all zones and divisions before the deadline.

The petition originated in the aftermath of the 2023 Odisha collision, which killed nearly 300 people and injured more than 1,000. Safety upgrades have been under judicial scrutiny since then. Insurance for counter tickets is one concrete outcome of that scrutiny. Whether the Railways can operationalize the scheme across more than 7,000 stations in two weeks will test the Board's capacity to translate a court direction into ground-level systems.

Passengers who buy tickets after 27 October will have a new layer of financial protection in the event of accident or death. The court has made clear that the responsibility for delivering that protection rests with the Railway Board, not with further consultations.