Farm leader Anil Ghanwat. (File) Farm leader Anil Ghanwat, a member of the Supreme Court-appointed committee to study the three farm laws, has said the majority of submissions the panel received were supportive of the repealed laws, but indicated the report won’t be made public until after the Uttar Pradesh elections.
“I will make the report public at an appropriate time to inform policy makers and farmers particularly since [the] overwhelming majority of the submissions the Supreme Court-appointed received were supportive of the now-repealed laws,” said a statement issued in Pune on Monday by Ghanwat, president of the Shetkari Sanghatana.
Ghanwat said neither the apex court nor the Centre had taken any decision on the report which was submitted in a sealed cover in March 2021. He, however, indicated the report could be released after the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections.
In January 2021 the Supreme Court, while hearing petitions challenging the controversial laws passed by Parliament in 2020, appointed the committee to study the laws and engage with stakeholders on the laws. Agriculture economists Ashok Gulati, Pramod Joshi and Bhupinder Singh Mann, president of Bharatiya Kisan Union, were the other members. Mann had later withdrawn from the committee.
The fate of the report is uncertain with the Centre having repealed all the three laws during Parliament’s Winter session in 2021. Ghanvat had earlier appealed to the government and the Supreme Court to make the report public.
Ghanwat also said Shetkari Sanghatana would hold a Feed India campaign on February 17 to press for the introduction of genetically modified seeds in Indian fields. Opposing the government’s support for zero-budget natural farming, Ghanwat said it would push the farm sector into penury.
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