Experts question mediation attempt of SC over impasse

Satya Prakash

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, January 13

The Supreme Court’s (SC) attempts to mediate an amicable solution to the ongoing protests against farm laws have not gone down well with legal experts who raised questions over the judiciary entering into the political thicket.

“The issue is essentially one of policy involving a major political decision based on the broadest national consensus and clearly a function of political rather than a judicial process,” former law minister Ashwani Kumar said.

“Even otherwise, the question of enforceability of its policy related judgements concerning political sensitivities has caused enough embarrassment to the court in the past, apart from raising issues about the advisability of the top court entering the political thicket contrary to its own pronouncements,” Kumar said.

Senior advocate and Supreme Court Bar Association president Dushyant Dave maintained that the SC had “put itself in a corner”.

Dave, one of the lawyers assisting the farmers groups, told an online news portal that the SC had “stepped into the political arena”. Kumar said the “benign and well-meaning intervention” by the Supreme Court to resolve the crisis was unlikely to end the stalemate as the committee set up by it comprised members who generally supported the laws. “The court’s order could result in prolonging the agitation given the public reaction of the farmers’ representatives,” he said.

Bar Council of India chairman Manan Kumar Mishra, however, said, “There’s nothing political about it. The SC is examining the three farm laws. It has stayed the implementation of the laws.”

Asked about setting up a four-member panel to talk to farmers’ organisations, Mishra said, “It’s aimed at getting the farmers views before the validity of the farm laws under challenge is decided.”

While staying the three farm laws, an SC Bench had on Tuesday appointed a four-member committee to talk to farmers’bodies and file a report in two months.

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