New Delhi: The Supreme Court sought Wednesday response of the Centre on a PIL challenging the constitutional validity of newly enacted three farm laws on grounds including that Parliament lacked power to make legislations on the subject. The plea also raised questions over the validity of ‘the Constitution (3rd Amendment Act) of 1954’ which allegedly empowered the Centre to frame the controversial farm laws on agriculture.
A bench headed by Chief Justice SA Bobde, while issuing notice to the Ministry of Law and Justice on the PIL of lawyer ML Sharma, said it would hear January 11 all the pleas challenging the new farm laws as also the ones raising issues related to the ongoing farmers’ protest at Delhi borders.
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In a hearing conducted through video conferencing, the bench, also comprising Justices AS Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian, took note of the petition which also contended that the subject ‘agriculture’ has wrongly been put in the concurrent list in the Constitution by Parliament in 1954. The bench also allowed the lawyer to amend his PIL in which he has also sought quashing of the three laws.
Earlier November 19, the bench had restored the PIL of Sharma which was dismissed October 12 and he was asked to approach the High Court instead.
The top court has already decided to hear pleas of 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 – Farmers’ (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020; Farmers’’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020 and The Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act 2020.