Sampuran Singh, a farmer in Ludhiana, was given the Swarna Shatabdi train as compensation for his land that was acquired by the Indian Railways. The Swarna Shatabdi is an express train, which runs daily between New Delhi and the Sikh holy city of Amritsar in Punjab.
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Here is all you need to know about the justice given to the farmer:
- Back in 2007, when the railways was acquiring land for the Ludhiana-Chandigarh railway line, it had planned to give about Rs 25 lakh to Rs 50 Lakh an acre. Sampuran Singh was entitled to get Rs 1.47 crore.
- Singh filed a case and won it in 2012 but the court ordered the railways to pay the amount to him in January 2015.
- When he received only Rs 42 lakh, he filed a plea for the execution of the orders.
- On Wednesday, the court of additional district and sessions judge Jaspal Verma attached the Swarna Shatabdi train (number 12030) to the unprecedented order making it the property of the decree holder.
- Apart from the train, Singh was also granted the ownership of the station master's office in Ludhiana that the train passes through.
- Singh and his Advocate Rakesh Gandhi reached the Ludhiana station one hour ahead of the train's arrival. They handed over the court orders to the train driver when it arrived at 6.55 pm.
- Section engineer Pradeep Kumar got the train released on superdari from a court official, thus making it the property of the court for now.
- The train was not halted for long as it would cause hassle to the passengers.
- Later the railway officials secured an interim court order giving them control of the train until the case is heard again on Saturday.
- According to Gandhi, on failure to pay the rest of the amount, the court can sanction an auction of the 20-coach express train.
However, this is not the first time that a farmer has been awarded a train as compensation. While an express train given as compensation to a 62-year-old farmer in 2006 was confiscated from him last year; in 2015 two other farmers from Himachal Pradesh were paid over 30 lakh to release an express train.
