SC Forms High-Powered Panel To Amicably Address Farmers’ Agitation At Shambhu Border

The Supreme Court on Monday constituted a high-powered committee to amicably address the issue of farmers’ agitation at the Shambhu border between Punjab and Haryana.

A bench of Justices Surya Kant and Ujjal Bhuyan directed the committee to identify and formulate the key issues for consideration and resolve them promptly. The committee, led by retired Justice Nawab Singh of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, aims to engage with the protesting farmers and resolve their concerns.

The apex court asked the panel to reach out to the agitating farmers to immediately remove their tractors, trolleys etc. from the Shambhu border to provide relief to commuters. Justice Singh has been instructed to convene the committee’s first meeting within a week.

From Haryana, the committee includes Justice Nawab Singh, who serves as the chairman, alongside BS Sandhu, a retired Director General of Police, and Davinder Sharma. Representing Punjab are Ranjit Singh Ghumman and Sukhpal Singh. The bench also directed the chairman of the panel to invite professor B R Kamboj, Vice Chancellor of the Chaudhary Charan Singh Haryana Agricultural University, as special invitee.

It also cautioned the protesting farmers to keep themselves at a safe distance from political parties and not to insist on demands which are not feasible. The top court said the farmers’ issues should not be politicised and be considered by the committee in a phased manner. The apex court said farmers will be at liberty to shift their peaceful agitations to alternative sites.

The court was hearing the Haryana government’s plea challenging the high court’s order asking it to remove within a week the barricades erected at the Shambhu border near Ambala where protesting farmers have been camping since February 13. On August 22, the bench had asked the Punjab and Haryana governments to convey to the agitating farmers that the court as well as the two states are concerned about their issues and a forum is being constituted for the redressal of their grievances.

The Haryana government had set up barricades on the Ambala-New Delhi national highway in February after the ‘Samyukta Kisan Morcha’ (Non-Political) and ‘Kisan Mazdoor Morcha’ announced that farmers would march to Delhi in support of their demands, including legal guarantee of minimum support price (MSP) for their produce.