Supreme Court mandates insurance on offline railway tickets from October 27

Supreme Court. File | Photo Credit: The Hindu

The Supreme Court has issued a mandatory directive that tickets sold across counters at every railway station nationwide must include travel insurance coverage identical to online bookings. A Bench of Justices Ahsanuddin Amanullah and R. Mahadevan directed the railway authorities to put the order into effect from October 27, 2026.

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The order explicitly warned that failure to implement this mechanism would place direct liability squarely on the Railway Board.

“At present, only people purchasing tickets online are provided the benefit of insurance coverage upon payment of a nominal additional amount. The court had granted sufficient time to the authorities to devise a mechanism extending such coverage to persons belonging to the lowest strata of society, who, in most cases, purchase their tickets at the railway reservation counters while undertaking journeys by train,” the court observed, pointing out that the railway had made no progress on providing insurance cover to all passengers.