Farmers’ protest: Put farm laws on hold, you passed it without enough consultation, SC tells Centre

12.45 pm: CJI Bobde clarifies that the court will not decide matters like who should enter Delhi. “It is for the police to decide,” he adds.

12.43 pm: Advocate Dushyant Dave, appearing for a farmers’ group, tells the court that the farmers will not hold the tractor march on January 26. “We are glad that Dave has said this,” the CJI notes.

12.40 pm: The attorney general says only two or three states are protesting. “The law is a crystallization of the recommendations of several committees,” he adds, according to Live Law.

12.38 pm: The attorney general says that there are Supreme Court precedents saying that courts cannot stay legislations.

12.35 pm: The chief justice lashes out at the attorney general. “We are sorry to say that you, as the Union of India, are not able to solve the problem,” he says. “You have made a law without enough consultation resulting in a strike. So you have to resolve the strike.”

12.33 pm: CJI Bobde refuses to hear on the constitutionality of the laws. “We will hear at length on the constitutionality later. Not at this moment,” he says.

12.28 pm: “We don’t know whether you are part of the solution or part of the problem,” says SC.

12.26 pm: The court says it will decide on the laws after the committee makes a report. “The court will not pass an order that citizens should not protest,” it adds.

12.20 pm: The Supreme Court proposes to set up a committee. “We also propose to stay the implementation of the laws. If anyone wants to argue, argue,” it adds.

12.16 pm: The CJI says there is not one petition that says the laws are good.

12.14 pm: Justice Bobde pulls up the Centre for seeking more time and insisting on implementing the laws. “If you have some sense of responsibility, and if you say you will withhold the implementation of laws, we will form committee to decide,” he says. “We don’t see why there should be an insistence that the laws must be implemented at any cost.”

12.12 pm: Chief Justice of India SA Bobde says political parties have placed the court in a delicate situation. “Our intention is clear,” he adds. “We want an amicable solution for the problem. That is why we asked you last time, why don’t you keep the laws on hold. But you are keeping asking on time.”

12.10 pm: The Supreme Court begins hearing petitions against the three farm laws and the ongoing agitations in Delhi borders, reports Live Law.

11.09 am: During the last hearing on January 6, Chief Justice of India SA Bobde had noted that there had been no “improvement on ground” in connection with the stalemate between the Centre and the farmers. On December 17, the bench had suggested that Centre should consider setting up a neutral committee to hold talks.

The court had noted that a protest is constitutional till it does not destroy property or endanger life. It had allowed the protest to continue in a non-violent fashion and at the same time had asked the state not to “instigate violence” using the police force.

11.04 am: India’s activist Supreme Court has often been viewed as a better venue for arbitration than the messy democratic politics of the street. In reality, it has only lived up to this image regularly on issues that concern India’s upper classes. More often than not, instead of acting as a check on government excess, it has tended to side with those in power.

11.01 am: The Supreme Court will shortly hear a batch of pleas seeking removal of protesting farmers from Delhi borders. Another set of petitions challenging the three farm laws are also listed before the bench headed by Chief Justice of India SA Bobde.

10.57 am: Bharatiya Kisan Union chief Gurnam Chaduni says he and other farmers will protest against any rally organised by the Bharatiya Janata Party to persuade people to support the farm laws. “Yes, we didn’t allow [Haryana Chief Minister Manohar] Khattar sahab to hold the rally in Kaimal,” he adds. “BJP said that they will hold 700 rallies to break our movement and we will protest against such BJP rallies.”

8.20 am: The Delhi Traffic Police tweets about the roads that are closed due to the farmers’ agitation.

8.18 am: Former Rajasthan Deputy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot urges the Narendra Modi government to withdraw the new farm laws, saying neither farmers nor state governments were consulted about it, reports PTI.

“The economy is collapsing, petrol-diesel prices are skyrocketing, cylinder prices are rising, inflation is rising, unemployment is increasing and in such a situation, the government is hitting the farmers with such a move,” says Pilot.

8.15 am: Farmers protesting at the Singhu border will burn copies of three farm laws on Lohri to express their anger, reports The Hindu.

8.08 am: The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear a batch of petitions challenging the three farm laws and the farmers agitation on the borders of Delhi today, reports PTI.

The eighth round of talks between the Centre and farm unions on January 8 ended without any resolution to the ongoing stalemate over the repeal of three farm reform laws. The ninth round of talks will be held on January 15.

During the last hearing, the Supreme Court had pointed out to the government that there had been no breakthrough or improvement in the impasse.

A quick look at the developments from Sunday:

• The farmers’ round-the-clock sit-ins on the outskirts of New Delhi has continued for over 40 days now.
• Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar’s visit to a village near Karnal city was cancelled on Sunday, after a group of farmers opposing the Centre’s agriculture laws ransacked the venue. Earlier during the day, the police had used water cannons and tear gas and resorted to baton charge to stop protestors from reaching a helipad in Kaimla village, where Khattar was scheduled to land to address the farmers in a “kisan mahapanchayat” event.
• Over 100 members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom have written to the country’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson, urging him to take up the farmers’ protests against India’s new agriculture laws with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
• A Bharatiya Janata Party MLA said that the farm laws protests were a conspiracy to spread the avian influenza, or the bird flu, as the farmers were eating chicken biryani. A video of him has now gone viral on social media.