The Supreme Court has flagged persistent overcrowding on trains as a serious safety risk and asked Indian Railways to deploy youth personnel on the ground to deter passengers from travelling on footboards. The Court also ordered the Railways to pay ₹8 lakh compensation to Lata, whose husband died in November 2015 after falling from a moving train.

The dispute matters for UPSC because it connects railway safety, compensation law, and constitutional values. The Court said practical constraints cannot override the duty to preserve life, and it asked the Railways to reconsider the label “second-class” passengers as inconsistent with egalitarian constitutional principles.

The claim arose after the Railway Claims Tribunal and the Madhya Pradesh High Court denied compensation because no train ticket could be recovered from the deceased. The Supreme Court set aside the tribunal-and-court approach and said the Railways, described by the Court as the nation’s “backbone”, should not rely on technicalities in compensation matters.

Background and earlier position

Train overcrowding and unsafe travel on footboards are recurring problems in Indian rail travel. The Supreme Court’s remarks indicate that the issue is not limited to one accident; the Court treated it as a persistent public-safety concern that requires both enforcement by Indian Railways and greater passenger caution.

Why the ruling matters for UPSC

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