New Delhi: The number of suicide cases by farmers due to agrarian reasons have increased by 26 per cent to 1,109 last year, with majority of deaths reported from Maharashtra.
Out of 1,109 cases, 986 were reported from Maharashtra, 84 from Telangana and 29 from Jharkhand. In 2013, 879 farmers had committed suicide, and in 2012 the cases of farmer suicides were 1,046.
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The number increased between the months of January to March 2015. Around 601 farmers have killed themselves in Maharashtra alone due to unseasonal rains.
In a latest case, a farmer hanged himself from a tree on Wednesday at Aam Aadmi Party's rally at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi ahead of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's address on the controversial land bill. He was rushed to the hospital where he was declared dead.
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The farmers’ organisations have moved a plea in Supreme Court challenging the re-promulgated land ordinance, terming it as “unconstitutional” and ultra vires of the Constitution and as a “colourful exercise of power” by the executive usurping law-making powers of the legislature.
The petition was filed by Bharatiya Kishan Union, Gram Sewa Samiti, Delhi Grameen Samaj and Chogama Vikas Avam, seeking a direction to restrain the government from acting upon in furtherance of the Right to Fair Compensation & Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (Amendment) Ordinance, 2015.
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The farmers’ bodies said the government’s action in promulgating successive ordinances bypassing the legislative process of Parliament was not only “arbitrary and violative” of Article 14 but also a “fraud on the Constitution” itself.
The government “deliberately” did not move the 2015 bill for discussion in the Rajya Sabha after its passage in the Lok Sabha between March 10 and 20 “due to lack of its numbers, political will or consensus,” the petition has said in which Ministries of Law and Justice, Parliamentary Affairs, Home Affairs, Rural Development and Cabinet Secretariat have been made parties.
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