The Supreme Court Tuesday sought cooperation of protesting farmers at Delhi borders and said no power can prevent it from setting up a committee to resolve the impasse over controversial farm laws.
The observation of the bench asking protesting farmers bodies to cooperate assume significance in view of reports that they would not go to any apex court-appointed panel for resolution of disputes and wanted repeal of laws only.
Before pronouncing the order, the bench headed by Chief Justice S A Bobde commenced the hearing and urged the farmers’ unions to cooperate and go before the committee to be appointed by it to resolve the dispute.
“We are concerned about protecting the lives and proerty of citizens of India and we want to solve the problem,” said the bench which also comprised Justices A S Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian.
In the proceedings conducted through video conferencing, it said no power can prevent us from making committee to resolve the impasse on new farm laws.
It reiterated the apex court has powers to suspend the legislation in order to solve the problem.
The government had told the court that the laws “were not hurriedly made”, that they were the result of two decades of deliberations.
In eight rounds of talks with farmers’ unions over the past month, the government had firmly ruled out withdrawing the laws but had offered to make amendments.
Noting that “no solution was in sight”, the Supreme Court said it was trying to solve the problem in the best way and had the power to suspend the laws.
“These are matters of life and death. We are concerned with laws. We are concerned with lives and property of people affected by the agitation. We are trying to solve the problem in the best way. One of the powers we have is to suspend the legislation,” the Chief Justice said.
“We want to solve the problem and that’s why we are making the committee,” he added.
The names suggested by the Supreme Court include agricultural economist Ashok Gulati, Anil Ghanwat (Shetkari Sanghatana), Bhupinder Singh Mann (former Rajya Sabha) and Pramod Joshi (International Food Policy Research Institute). All four are known to support the farm laws.
