Farmers Movement Archive

SC-appointed committee to study farm laws may make report public

Nagpur: The decision to repeal three farm laws has left members of the Supreme Court-appointed committee disappointed. They are considering the option to make the report, which was submitted before the Apex court in March, public. Following a PIL challenging the constitutional validity of the laws, the SC had appointed a three-member committee to study the laws. The panel, which was formed on January 12, had submitted the report on March 19, a day before the deadline. “The report was supposed to be made public during the next hearing scheduled eight weeks later. However, the hearing did not take place. While we raised concerns over the report not being released, the government has repealed the laws itself,” said Anil Ghanawat, the president of Shetkari Sangathana — a farmers’ outfit in Maharashtra — and a member of the committee. Ghanawat said he was heading to Delhi to meet other members of the committee. They plan to meet on Monday and take a decision to release the report. “Since the laws itself have been repealed, there should not be any legal issue in doing so,” he said. The other members of the committee are Pramod Joshi, the director of South Asia Food Policy Research Institute, and Ashok Gulati, the former chairman on committee on agriculture costs and practices. Gulati said he has no idea about the plan to release the report. “The committee has done its job and submitted the document to the court. Now since the laws itself have been repealed, the report has no relevance,” he said. Without divulging much details, Ghanawat said the committee had made recommendations on all the three problematic laws. The major stress was on making the Essential Commodities Act more liberal. “Under the law, stock limits would be imposed if rates of perishable produce went up by 100% of the last five years’ level and for non-perishable items it was 50%. We had mooted to do away with the stock limit or increase the ambit of price rise,” he said. There were similar measures to make the other two laws more trade and farmer friendly too, according to Ghanawat. Dinesh Kulkarni, the organization secretary of Bharatiya Kisan Sangh, which is the farm outfit of the Sangh Parivar, said, “We also want a law to guarantee a basic remunerative price for farmers under all circumstances. This can be in the form of a mandatory MSP.” A press release by the Sangh said Friday’s decision is a right move “for avoiding unnecessary controversy over the issue”. “However, the stance by the so-called farmers opposing the laws will lead to a loss in the long run. The laws would have brought benefit to the small and medium farmers,” it said.

The Times of India

2021-11-20

Nagpur