DAVANGERE: The Hubli-Bengaluru inter-city train chugged into the Harihar railway station in rural Karnataka at 7.50 am on Monday for an unscheduled stop. However, after standing still for nearly an hour, fretting passengers were told that the train had been seized by the court because the Indian Railways had not paid compensation to two farmers whose land it took to build the railway line 15 years ago.
Court staff from the Davanagere district court, assisted by the local police, stopped the train at the Harihar railway station, some 280 km from Bengaluru and would not let it move until the railway authorities came by to give an undertaking that farmers Mallesh and Shivakumar would be paid their due.
Embarrassed railway officials came around two hours later and then the train was finally rolled out.
Land belonging to Mallesh and Shivakumar was taken to lay the railway line 15 years ago, under mandatory compensation laws under which farmers can contest the quantum of compensation but not the acquisition itself. The duo surrendered the land but held out for higher compensation.
The case dragged on until December 2015, when the Davanagere court ruled for the farmers and gave the Indian Railways two months to pay the duo Rs 37 lakh. When the two months passed and the Railways still had not paid up, Mallesh and Shivakumar again went to court.
In February this year, court officials did stop the Chitradurga- Bangalore passenger at Harihar to signal to the Railways that they meant business. But the state transporter still did not comply. Fed up, the court sent its bailiffs on its seizure mission this morning.