The Supreme Court (SC) on Tuesday formed a committee to get a “clearer picture” of the three farm laws, which have sparked widespread protests by the farmers, ANI reported. The apex court also stayed the implementation of the three farms laws “until further orders.”
The SC passed the order after hearing a number of petitions challenging the validity of the Centre’s three farm laws and removing farmers, protesting at Delhi’s border areas.
“We’re concerned about the validity of the laws and also about protecting the life and property of citizens affected by protests,” the CJI SA Bobde noted.
“We are trying to solve the problem in accordance with the powers we have. One of the powers we’ve is to suspend the legislation and make a committee,” he said.
“This committee will be for us,” CJI Bobde highlighted.
“All of you people who are expected to solve the issue will go before this committee. It will not pass an order or punish you, it will only submit a report to us,” he added.
His statement came as advocate ML Sharma, who filed the petition challenging the farm laws said that farmers have said they will not appear before any SC-constituted committee.
“We don’t want to hear arguments that farmers will not go to the committee,” CJI Bobde said.
“We are looking to solve the problem,” the CJI said, adding that if farmers wanted to protest indefinitely, they could do so.
When advocate ML Sharma said, the farmers were saying many persons came for discussions, but the main person, the Prime Minister did not, the CJI interjected that PM Narendra Modi was not a party to the case.
Senior advocate Harish Salve, who appeared for one of the petitioners, said the staying of the laws shouldn’t be seen as a political victory.
“It should be seen as a serious examination of concerns expressed over the legislations,” he said, according to ANI.
Salve told the court that senior advocates Dushyant Dave, HS Phoolka, Colin Gonsalves, who represented 400 farmers’ bodies, didn’t join Tuesday’s proceedings. “They were supposed to consult the farmers on the formation of a committee and come back today,” he said.
CJI Bobde said the SC would say in the order that farmers may apply for permission to the Delhi Police Commissioner for protests at Ramlila Maidan or other locations.
The court asked Attorney General KK Venugopal regarding petitions alleging infiltration of the protest by banned organisation.
To this, Attorney General said, “we have said that Khalistanis have infiltrated into the protests.”
The SC has told him to file an affidavit by Wednesday to confirm the claim.
“We will file an affidavit in this regard and place the Intelligence Bureau (IB) records,” Venugopal said.
Also read: A look back at farm laws and farmers’ protest
Farmers, chiefly from Punjab and Haryana, are protesting for over a month over the three farm laws that were enacted in September during the Monsoon Session of Parliament.
