New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday expressed serious concern over the plight of farmers in the country and issued notice to the Centre on a public interest writ petition seeking better and fair remunerative prices for their products.
A three-judge Bench of Chief Justice H.L. Dattu and justices S.A. Bobde and Amitav Roy issued notice returnable in four weeks after hearing senior counsel Rakesh Diwedi and counsel Sridhar Potaraju, appearing for Consortium of Indian Farmers’ Associations.
Even as the counsel narrated the plight of farmers who are not able to get fair support prices for their products, in particular sugarcane, the CJI observed, “We also read in newspapers about suicide by farmers. This is a genuine PIL and court will always entertain these types of PILs.”
The petitioner highlighted the plight of sugarcane farmers who in spite of legislative intervention are not able to make their ends meet and have been forced into the quicksand of debt trap which has led to several suicides by farmers in Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and some other places.
It said under the sugarcane control order farmers are entitled to get remunerative prices. It said sugar factories are running into huge arrears of payments to farmers in view of their precarious financial position.
This fact is well documented by the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Price, which in its report has recommended formulating a mechanism which is economically sound and fixing sugar price to farmers on the basis of revenue sharing formula.
