SC declines to consider farmers’ demands, including gathering in Delhi without Centre's interference

The petition claimed restricting the farmers from entering the national capital without reasonable cause violated their right to travel freely within the country, as enshrined in the Constitution.

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday declined to consider a plea for a direction to the Centre to consider the reasonable demands of the farmers and remove all barricading in their peaceful march and gathering in the national capital.

A bench of Justices Surya Kant and K V Vishwanathan asked the petitioner not to file such petition for the sake of publicity, only based on newspaper reports.

"Be careful. The High Court is also seized of the similar issue and has given directions. We are not taking stand on anything. Do your research, these are complex issues," the bench told the counsel.

The counsel then preferred to withdraw the plea, which also sought a direction to unblock the social media accounts and respect the right to free speech of the people sharing information about the farmer’s protest.

The petition was filed Agnostos Theos, managing director of the Sikh Chamber of Commerce.

He claimed restricting the farmers from entering the national capital without any due reasonable cause violated their right to travel freely throughout the territory of the country as enshrined under Article 19(1)(d) of the Constitution.

The plea made the Union, Haryana Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, and Delhi governments, and National Human Rights Commission, as parties.

The plea claimed the state governments have employed aggressive and violent measures like usage of tear gas, rubber bullet pellets, expired shells etc against peacefully protesting farmers, leading to serious and grievous injuries among the farmers.

The plea claimed, “The actions taken by the state governments by creating fortification across the borders of the national capital, creating hostile and violent situations against its own peaceful citizens and not allowing the farmers to exercise their democratic right, has led to direct and indirect defamation of the intentions and the objective of the protesting farmers".

It alleged the peaceful farmers have been subject to conditions similar to terrorists by their own government, simply for the exercise of their democratic and constitutional rights.

The plea alleged the violation of the rights of the farmers protesting for their demands, enshrined under Article 14, Article 19 and Article 21 of the Constitution.

The farmers peacefully protested for their demand for the implementation of the recommendations of the Swaminathan committee as per their call for the protest for ‘Dilli Chalo’ on February 13, it said.

“The Union and State governments, in anticipation of the protest by the farmer, issued threats against the people in participating in the protest, fortified the borders of the state around the city of Delhi, with iron spikes, concrete walls, etc ensuring that farmers are not able to enter territory of the national capital,” it said.

The plea said the farmers coming to protest for their rights even by their own private vehicles, from the state bordering Delhi, were forcefully arrested and detained by the respondent governments. “Similarly, farmers coming from various other states of the county, to join the protesting farmers, were detained in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, and were also sent to other states, just to avoid them meeting with protesting farmers” it said.