The Supreme Court on Friday criticised the Centre’s failure to financially secure the lives of scores of sugarcane farmers who end their lives unable to bear the “quicksand of debt traps”.
A bench led by Chief Justice of India H.L. Dattu directed the Centre to reply to a public interest petition highlighting how the government has failed to comply with the mandate of the Sugarcane Control Order, 1966, and the Essential Commodities Act, 1955, under which it is the statutory obligation of the government to provide sugarcane farmers with fair and remunerative price within a period of 14 days.
“This is what we call a genuine public interest litigation. This is about our farmers. We will issue notice to the government,” Chief Justice Dattu observed on hearing the plight of the farmers seeking the Supreme Court’s protection of their right to life under Article 21 of the Constitution.
The petition, filed by the Consortium of Indian Farmers’ Association, represented by senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi and advocate Sridhar Potaraju, said it was the “constitutional duty and obligation of the Centre to ensure that farmers of the country are not forced to take the ultimate step out of despair in the 21st century, putting this great nation to shame.”
The bench admitted the petition on hearing Mr. Dwivedi’s submissions that the government had still not bothered to implement the August 2014 report by the Commission on Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP), commissioned by the Agriculture Ministry, to save sugarcane farmers from suicides.
The CACP report titled “Price Policy for Sugarcane 2015-16 Sugar Season” recommended that the Centre fix an FRP on a revenue sharing formula between sugarcane factory owners who are chronically unable to pay their farmers and the farmers themselves.
It also said the government should establish a sugar stabilisation fund to ensure that farmers are paid their dues within a reasonable time.
The report was meant as an exercise to ameliorate the current tragic condition of sugarcane farmers, Mr. Dwivedi argued.