PATIALA: The Indian Farmers' Association (
IFA) on Thursday filed a review petition in the Supreme Court of India in continuation of a PIL seeking directions to the union government for prompt implementation of the MS
Swaminathan Commission report. The SC had in October dismissed the petition stating that was a policy matter and the court could not direct the country's parliament to implement the recommendations made by the commission.
President of the IFA, Satnaam Singh Behru, said the association had constituted a panel of ten SC lawyers who were now representing the Indian farmers in the SC to ensure that the farmers get a fair deal as far as fixing the minimums support price for the farmers was concerned.
Behru said the recommendations made by the commission had renewed the hopes of the country's farmers that there would be a lasting solution to the plight of the cultivators. Constituted during the tenure of the former Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh the
MS Swaminathan Commission had recommended ways to find a practical solution to the agrarian crisis that has been gripping the cultivators for a long time now. The recommendations also included measures to prevent farmers' suicides and achieve faster and more inclusive growth.
In October, last year, a Bench headed by justice
Madan B Lakur had dismissed the PIL filed by the IFA, which had moved the petition on behalf of the affiliated farmers' organisations from across the country in the year 2011. The Swaminathan Commission had given its fifth and last recommendation report to the union government in the year 2006.
Behru said despite the urgency in resolving the issues being faced by the farmers there was an unnecessary delay in finding a solution even as the number of farmer suicides being reported from across the country was showing a steady rise over the last several years. He said the association had asked its team of legal experts to prepare a fresh draft, which was today placed before the apex court for its consideration.
What the commission had recommended and what the farmers are seeking
The commission had laid out the causes of the agrarian crisis in the country underlining that unfinished agenda on land reforms, quantity and quality of water, technology fatigue, access, adequacy and timeliness of institutional credit, and opportunities for assured and remunerative marketing were amongst many reasons which were forcing the farmers to committee suicides.
