Use of any app to fraudulently book e-tickets is illegal: IRCTC

New Delhi: It has been noticed that several newspapers/websites have reported arrest of a techie who has developed app for faster e-tickets through www.irctc.co.in.

It may be noticed that under Section 143(2) of Railway Act- carrying of unauthorized business of procuring and supplying railway tickets is illegal. Use of an application to fraudulently help few to jump the queue is illegal too and falls within the same ambit of illegality. IRCTC has already had these features which have been listed in the application made by the said accused. However they were disabled to ensure level playing field for all the users. There is nothing so new in Computer Application made by the said accused.

It may be mentioned that the website www.irctc.co.in is available for booking of railway e-tickets so that general users are able to book tickets in normal way without aid of any illegal software. To prevent illegal software that are available in the market, several steps have been taken including setting up of time limits for booking of e-tickets to prevent use of any illegal software and introduction of several captchas. The monitoring is done on regular basis of suspicious transactions and user ids are de-activated daily of suspicious users.

The faster app mentioned in the reports is in fact not a faster app. Through this app he was illegally booking e-tickets making money from the Railway facility and also charging people to use his app contrary to reports.