Ludhiana farmer seeking compensation for land acquired by railways gets a Swarn Shatabdi!

Sampuran Singh, a 45-year-old farmer from Ludhiana, moved to the court seeking compensation for land acquired by Northern Railways. However, in a surprising turn of events, he became the owner of a Swarn Shatabdi train that runs between Amritsar and Delhi.

In a surprising order, the court of additional district and sessions judge Jaspal Verma attached the train (number 12030) at the Ludhiana station – technically making the farmer the owner of the train.

The Northern Railway failed to comply with the court order from 2015 to provide an enhanced compensation of Rs 1.05 crore to the aggrieved farmer. Apart from the train, the order also had an attachment of the office of the station master.

“An hour ahead of the train’s reaching the station, Sampuran and his advocate, Rakesh Gandhi, reached there. The court orders were handed to the train driver when it arrived at 6.55 pm. Section engineer Pradeep Kumar then got the train released on superdari from a court official who was there too, thus making it property of the court for now. The episode lasted about five minutes”, reads a report by Hindustan Times.


Singh said that they did not stop the train as it would cause a lot of inconvenience to the passengers.

The case goes back to the acquisition of land for the Ludhiana-Chandigarh railway line in 2007. The court had enhanced compensation from Rs 25 Lakh an acre to Rs 50 Lakh, and Sampuran Singh was entitled to Rs 1.47 crore. However, he had only received Rs 42 Lakh from the railways.

The original claim petition was filed in 2012 but the court orders for payment came through in 2015. As the amount was still unpaid, he moved to court and filed a plea for the execution of orders.