It has come to notice that in order to analyze and study the three farm laws suggested by the central government which invited a lot of flak and agitation soon after its announcement, a panel was appointed by the honorable Supreme Court of India. As per their findings, 86% of farmer organizations representing more than 3 crore farmers were in favour of the farm laws which were rolled back by the Modi government after almost a year-long protest.
The panel consisted of Ashok Gulati (Agriculture Economist), Anil Ghanwat (President, Shetkari Sanghatana Maharashtra), Pramod Kumar Joshi (International Food Policy Research Institute) and Bhupinder Singh Mann (President of a faction of the Bhartiya Kisan Union). While Mann backed out from the panel, the other three members continued their research and submitted their report to SC way back on the 19th of March, 2021 in a sealed envelope.
The findings of the committee hold little significance as of date, but it can definitely pave a future path for policymakers and farmers in general. As per the panel’s report, the three farm laws should have been retained and suggested that states could be given some freedom to modify and implement the laws in accordance with the centre’s approval. It further added that the scraping of these laws would be unjust towards the silent majority who supported them.
A notable mention by the panel was of employing cooperatives and Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs) to improve agricultural infrastructure, along with that to form an agriculture marketing council with all states and union territories as members to implement the acts.
According to the report, the panel approached a total of approximately 266 organizations, including a few that were protesting. The panel received 1,520 electronic mails and 19,027 responses on the dedicated portal. It should also be mentioned here that in spite of many invitations, the protesting farmer organizations present on the outskirts of the capital did not participate in these discussions with the panel.
As per Anil Ghanwat who was one of the panelists, he wrote to the CJI thrice as well as to PM Modi, but the report was not brought to the public eye for reasons best known to concerned authorities. Ghanwat added that he recently discussed in detail whether to make the report public or not and the other two members gave him the freedom to take a call on this issue. He further said that he shall decide on that after analyzing the legal consequences, if any.”
