E-Paper
Two months on, attached Swarna Shatabdi finally released by court
It was on March 16 that the court had ordered attachment of the train after the railways failed to comply with the court’s order issued in 2015 to clear the farmer’s dues for his land acquired for the Ludhiana-Chandigarh railway line in 2007.
Two months after it was attached and became the property of a Ludhiana court, the Swarna Shatabdi Express (12030) was finally released on Wednesday and returned to the Railways.
The Railways had deposited, in the previous hearing on April 25, an amount of Rs 73.9 lakh in the court for the pending land-acquisition compensation of complainant farmer Sampuran Singh.
Technically the court’s property, the train continued to ply as usual between Amritsar and New Delhi all this while.
Earlier, the court had given time to the Railways to pay the pending compensation of Rs 1.05 crore as demanded by the farmer. “The farmer calculated the pending compensation amount as Rs 1.05 crore, but it actually was Rs 73.9 lakh. The court has released our property now,” said Iqbal Singh, counsel for Railways.
It was on March 16 that the court had ordered attachment of the train after the railways failed to comply with the court’s order issued in 2015 to clear the farmer’s dues for his land acquired for the Ludhiana-Chandigarh railway line in 2007.
It had also ordered attachment of the office of the station master. Section engineer Pradeep Kumar had then got the train released on ‘superdari’ (interim custody).
