The Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court has asked the Sitapur District administration under what circumstances was it demanding a large amount in the private bond sought from the farmers.
The division bench of Justice Ramesh Sinha and Justice Rajiv Singh passed this order while hearing a PIL filed by Arundhati Dhuru. Sitapur administration had asked the farmers for private bonds ranging from Rs 50,000 to Rs 10 lakh to prevent a situation like the farmers’ agitation in Delhi. After the PIL filed for this strange action, the High Court asked government officials why such a large amount was demanded from the farmers.
The Court directed the Additional Advocate General Vinod Kumar Shahi to get information about the entire case from the Sitapur DM.
In fact, the Sitapur administration, in the wake of the farmers movement, demanded to fill private bonds ranging from Rs 50,000 to Rs 10 lakh from 10 farmers due to the fear of violating the law. The petitioner, Arundhati Dhuru, said on January 19, notice was issued to all tractor-owning farmers. Not only this, the police also laid siege to their homes to prevent them from participating in the movement.
Both SDMs working under the Sitapur District Magistrate issued groundless notices to stop the farmers, the petition said. This order violates the fundamental rights of the farmers, as they are prevented from leaving their houses.
Maholi SDM Pankaj Rathore said that this action was justified, saying that if they did not take this step, then the same situation would have happened in Sitapur like in Delhi. He said 35 farmers of Sitapur participated in the demonstrations on the Delhi border. Apart from this, a demonstration was also held on January 13 in Mishrikh area of the District.
The next hearing in this case will be on February 2.
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