Farmers Movement Archive

SC rejects farmers’ plea on land acquisition for Delhi-Katra national highway

The Supreme Court on Wednesday declined to entertain a public interest litigation (PIL), which sought a direction to the Centre to have a dialogue with agitating farmers whose lands have been reportedly acquired for construction of ₹25,000 crore Delhi-Amritsar-Katra national highway. A bench, headed by Chief Justice of India SA Bobde, heard attorney general (A-G) KK Venugopal before turning down a plea for issuing directives to the government to treat these farmers on par with Samyukta Kisan Manch (SKM), an unregistered body of farmers with whom the Centre has held 11 rounds of talks over the recently enacted three contentious farm laws. The A-G, reading out the prayers by the petitioner organisation, Bharat Bhoomi Bachao Sangharsh Samiti, called the plea as “political”, adding “it would throw open floodgates” if such petitions were entertained by the apex court. “Look at the second prayer in this petition. It talks about giving equal opportunity to the farmers to be heard as a matter of right and in terms with what the government has done with the other set of farmers. This is absolutely vague,” Venugopal submitted before the bench, which also included justices AS Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian. Also Read | Old consumer cases won’t be transferred,’ says Supreme CourtThe bench told the A-G that it had asked the petitioner to serve a copy in Venugopal’s office since the government was already negotiating with the farmers on the farm law. “Land acquisition is often connected with the farmers. We thought since you people have been negotiating with the farmers, this could also be looked into by you,” it told the A-G. Venugopal, however, asserted that the prayers in this petition were ambiguous and even though the PIL named farmers from various states, there was no description of the land owned by them. Representing the PIL, advocate MC Dhingra urged the bench to consider the request for a dialogue with the government. “We are the farmers peacefully engaged,” he said. But the bench said it could not admit the petition in view of Venugopal’s statements. “We are not casting any aspersions on you. You remain peaceful...that is all. The petition is dismissed,” ordered the court. The plea contended that lakhs of poor farmers from Haryana, Punjab and Rajasthan, whose lands are being acquired for the 650 km road project, were waiting for the government to initiate a dialogue with them since January but in vain. Apart from alleging that they have been treated unequally in comparison to the SKM, the organisation claimed that the farmers had been denied adequate compensation in lieu of the lands acquired from them for the highway project.

Hindustan Times

17-03-2021

India