Indian farmer wins train in legal fight

NEW DELHI // An Indian farmer has been awarded a train after suing for fair compensation for land taken by the national railway company. Sampuran Singh went to court in 2015 to argue that Indian Railways had underpaid him for land it acquired to lay tracks in the northern state of Punjab.

He won his case, but the railway refused to pay and so he filed another plea in January.

Yesterday, Mr Singh’s lawyer, Rakesh Gandhi, said a court awarded his client an express train in lieu of the 10 million rupees ( Dh561,000) he was owed.

“We were tired of pleading with the railways to clear the pending dues and the court asked us to identify properties for recovering our money.” Judge Jaspal Verma also granted Mr Singh ownership of the station master’s office in Ludhiana, a city in Punjab that the train passes through.

After Wednesday’s hearing, Mr Singh and his lawyer took the court order to Ludhiana station where they waited for the train to arrive before handing the document to the driver. Mr Singh said he allowed the driver to carry on as stopping the train “would have caused inconvenience to thousands of passengers”.

The 20-coach express train runs daily between New Delhi and the Sikh holy city of Amritsar in Punjab.

Railway officials later secured an interim court order giving them control of the train until the case is heard again today.

“If they fail to pay the money by then the court can sanction an auction,” Mr Gandhi said.

Several Indian courts in the past have awarded trains to aggrieved farmers over unpaid dues. Last year, an express train was confiscated after a farmer in southern Karnataka state won a compensation case over land taken in 2006.

In 2015, railway officials handed over 3 million rupees to two farmers at a station in the state of Himachal Pradesh to secure the release of an express train.

Twenty-coach express train can be auctioned if railway fails to pay compensation