TAD NewsDesk, New Delhi: The Supreme Court reinstated a PIL which was discarded earlier challenging the constitutional validity of the Centre’s Farm Laws. The plea gave the claim that that the Parliament had no authority to make legislation in the subject of ‘agriculture’ which was mentioned as a state subject in the Constitution.
A bench headed by Cheif Justice S A Bobde on October 12 had issued a notice to the Centre with reference to a bunch of petitions against the three farm laws passed by the centre and had sought a reply in four weeks.
But it had dismissed one petition filed by lawyer M L Sharma and have asked to approach the High Court instead.
The bench said to Sharma, “We will restore and keep your matter for admission after two weeks.” And in addition about the earlier dismissal, the bench said, “We had discussed it. The point on which we had dismissed it was that there was no cause of action.”
Sharma has claimed that he was not allotted the time to argue his case on the last day of the hearing. He has appealed a restoration of his petition in a hearing conducted by video conferencing. He said, “if I could not appear before the court and argue myself, then it amounts to non-appearance.”
The apex court had decided to hear pleas of the following petitioners:
- RJD lawmaker from Rajya Sabha
- Manoj Jha and DMK Rajya Sabha MP from Tamil Nadu
- Tiruchi Siva, and one by Rakesh Vaishnav of Chhattisgarh Kisan Congress against the three laws
Sharma argued in his petition that the SC cannot interfere in the matters relating to agriculture as it is a part of state list and not union list. The plea said,
“That the present petition is being filed to decide constitutional questions follow such as whether Parliament has constitutional power to make a law in the subject matter belong to state list.”
The agriculture is placed at entry 14 of the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution.
The petition however has been reinstated by the Supreme Court and the hearing would take place to understand and investigate the claims. It is only after the decision by the bench that anything further could be said upon the most controversial subject in agriculture currently, the three farm laws.
Source: Business Standard
