Justice being served to our farmers is usually quite uncommon in today’s world where we can see a lot of news reports with various data on farmers suicide in India. However, this one particular incident with the 45 years old farmer in Ludhiana has now grabbed a lot of eyeballs which has once again restored people’s faith in Indian Judiciary System.
Just like how ‘a Lannister always pays his debts’, the Indian court has now decided to direct the Indian Railways to give proper compensation to this farmer whose land was acquired by them. The farmer’s name is Sampuran Singh. The case goes back to the acquisition of land for the Ludhiana-Chandigarh railway line in 2007.
At that point of time, the court had ordered the Indian Railway to give him a compensation of Rs 25 Lakhs and later increased it to Rs 50 lakhs. Sampuran was entitled to Rs 1.47 crores but the Indian Railway only paid him Rs 42 lakhs. Following this, as he was not paid as per the promise, he filed the plea for execution of the orders. Earlier in 2015, the court had ordered the Indian Railways to provide a compensation of Rs 1.05 crores to this farmer.
But since the Indian Railway again failed to comply with the court’s order, the sessions judge Jaspal Verma decided to give the train Swarna Shatabdi Express (12030) to the aggrieved farmer. The train Swarna Shatabdi Express runs between Amritsar and New Delhi. However, unlike how we would react, Sampuran Singh didn’t take it home.
Before the train’s arrival at the station, Sampuran Singh along with his advocate Rakesh Gandhi came an hour early to the station. And when the train arrived at 6:55 pm, the court’s order was handed to the train’s driver. The section engineer Pradeep Kumar got the train released on superdari from a court official, thus making the train a property of the court.
Sampuran Singh being a simple man understood the gravity of the situation and asked the official not to stop the train “as that will cause a lot of trouble to the passengers”.
When the divisional railway manager Anuj Parkash was contacted regarding this news, he said, “there was some issue relating to compensation amount to a farmer which is being sorted out”. He further added that such orders are usually examined by the law ministry. In a sarcastic tone, he further went ahead and said, “What will the petitioner do with the 300-metre train? Can he take it home?”
So what do you think about the entire episode? Please share your opinion in the comment section below.