The Supreme Court has stayed the implementation of the three farm laws which were passed by Parliament and approved by President Ram Nath Kovind last year. As per the verbal order, the implementation of the three laws have been stayed till further orders and a committee of agricultural economists would look into the laws and would talk to protesters and Government on this issue and apprise the Court.
The stay comes in the wake of thousands of farmers from Punjab, Haryana and a few other states laying siege to the capital after their being disallowed to enter the capital. In the hearing on Tuesday, the Supreme Court bench of Chief Justice S.A. Bobde, Justices A.S. Bopanna and V. Ramasubramanian also named the four-member committee. The committee has Bharatiya Kisan Union president Bhupinder Singh Mann, international food policy South Asia director Pramod Kuamr Joshi, Shetkari Sangathan’s Anil Ghanwat and agricultural economist Ashok Gulati. The orders on the stay will be issued later.
During the hearing today, Attorney General K.K. Venugopal and Solicitor General Tushar Mehta asked the Court to ensure that farmers’ do not enter or try to enter the Capital on Republic Day when security arrangements will be on top gear. On being asked if the protest had been infiltrated by radical outfits, Venugopal said the government had said earlier that Khalistanis had infiltrated the protest. Later, the Court issued notice on the Centre’s plea on preventing any march by the farmers on Republic Day, and will hear it on Monday.
Similarly, Senior Advocate A.P. Singh, appearing for a BKU faction which was impleaded yesterday, drew attention to the fact that the protest at Singhu and Tikri borders were very different from the one at Shaheen Bagh last year against the Citizenship Amendment Act and cannot be compared to each other. He said the farmers are protesting in a patriotic way.
The counsel representing Tiruchi Siva, the DMK Rajya Sabha MP, said it is entirely untrue that farmers in the South have welcomed the laws. Vijayawada in Andhra Pradesh has seen huge protests, the counsel said, in reply to CJI Bobde repeating Venugopal’s claim. The Attorney General had said farmers in Kerala and Karnataka had welcomed the laws, prompting the rebuttal by Siva’s counsel.
On Monday, Chief Justice Bobde had harsh words for the government’s inability to address the farmers’ concerns. The Court also evinced concern at the winter increasing cold, the number of suicides by farmers and the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.
The farmers unions have stuck to their demands that the Centre repeal the laws. Most of them, barring a few, have said they don’t want to be part of any committee set up by the Court to resolve the crisis, since they have maintained that it is within the government’s remit, and not the Courts, to withdraw the laws.
Farmers from Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and across the country have been protesting at the Delhi borders since November 26, 2020. Despite bitter cold and rains, the farmers are not ready to step back. They have laid siege to Delhi even as the government scrambles to find an amicable solution. They argue that they would settle for nothing less than total scrapping of the legislation. There have been an increasing number of suicides as well.
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On the other hand, the government has projected the laws as major reform in agriculture. The removal of the mandi system and middlemen will allow farmers to sell their produce anywhere in the country, claims the government. Protesting farmers have argued the new laws have no mention of minimum support price (MSP) and the mandis that will leave them at the mercy of big corporates. The government has maintained that MSP will continue in verbal assurances but is yet to incorporate it into law as demanded by the farmers.