Supreme Court - Daily Orders
Citizens Resource And Action ... vs State Of Gujarat And Ors. on 6 July, 2017
Author: Chief Justice
Bench: Chief Justice, D.Y. Chandrachud
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA
CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION
SPECIAL LEAVE PETITION (C) NO.29910 OF 2014
CITIZENS RESOURCE AND ACTION
INITIATIVE (CRANTI) ... PETITIONER(S)
VS.
STATE OF GUJARAT & ORS. ... RESPONDENT(S)
O R D E R
1. We have heard learned counsel for the parties at some length. We were informed by Mr. K.K. Venugopal, learned Attorney General, that a line of action has been adopted by the Central Government to secure the livelihood of individuals involved in agriculture. In this behalf, the following details have been furnished to us :
“1. Crop Insurance : 'Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana' (PMFBY) instituted, from Kharif season 2016. This scheme is a huge improvement over the previous schemes (National Agriculture Insurance Scheme).
(a) Low premium rates [2% for Kharif, 1.5% for Rabi and 5% for commercial and other crops]. The most competitive premium rate is discovered through a bidding process carried out by the each state government in which public sector and private insurance companies participate, and the difference between the above rates specified in the PMBFY and the marker determined rate is paid by the government (Central Government and State Government share the burden in Signature Not Verified equal proportion).Digitally signed by
b) The farmers get full insurance as the insured amount is required to be equal to SARITA PUROHIT Date: 2017.07.13 17:58:24 IST Reason:
the 'scale of finance', which is determined in each district, so that the farmers do 1 not take insurance for a value less than their cost of production.
c) All farmers who avail of crop loans (loanee farmers) are mandatorily covered under this scheme and the premium amount is automatically deducted from their loan amounts.
d) Insurance cover provided for all stages of the crop cycle.
2. To bring more farmers into the institutional fold, the government is taking steps to ensure the availability of crop loans to all farmers through commercial banks, cooperative banks and Regional Rural banks (RRBs). For 2017-2018, the target for agricltural credit is Rs.10 Lakh crores, as compared to Rs.9 lakh crores last year. Short term loans provided at an interest rate of 7%, which is reduced to 4% in case of prompt repayment (interest subvention). The benefit of interest subvention extended to small and marginal farmers having Kisan Credit Cards for a further period of 6 months post harvest, to encourage farmers to store crops in warehouses.
3. Kisan Credit Card (KCC), which is also ATM enabled, has been introduced, to enable farmers to purchase raw materials, and to draw cash.
4. RBI has allowed banks to take a lenient view on rescheduling of loans if crop loss is more than 33%.
5. To enable farmers to get remunerative prices on their produce, the government has introduced the 'e-NAM' scheme [e – National Agricultural Market]. The Government intends to ultimately create a single unified market for the country.
6. Other market reforms are also being undertaken, such as drafting a Model Act called 'State/U.T. Agriculture Produce and Livestock Marketing (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2017' which ensures multiple market channels to prevent monopolies.
7. Steps are being taken to promote land pooling and discouraging land fallows, by adopting Model land leasing laws. A draft law has been prepared by the Niti Aayog and shared with the States and U.Ts.
28. Current regime for felling and transport of trees in non-forest and private lands is being liberalized to promote agro-forestry and diversity farmers' income basket.
9. The government targets to double farmers' incomes by the year 2022, through the introduction of modern technology and the strengthening of markets. This shifts the focus, from a production approach (i.e. merely increase production without necessarily increasing profitability) to an income approach (i.e. increase incomes and profitability in the agriculture sector).
10. Soil Health Card Scheme is being implemented, to provide each farmer the status of the soil on his/her land, based on 12 parameters.
11. Neem Coated Urea is being promoted, to enhance nitrogen availability to the crops and reduce fertilizer use. The expected saving is 10% of Urea consumption, thereby reducing the cost of cultivation and improved health management.
12. Better quality seeds are being made available to farmers.
13. Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana (PMKSY) launched on 01.07.2015, to provide end-to-end irrigation solutions for farmers.
14. A sub-Mission on agricultural mechanization was launched in 2014-15, to promote farm mechanization.
15. Other schemes have also been implemented such as the National Food Security Mission, National Mission for Oilseed and Oil Palm, Mission of Integrated Development for Horticulture, National Mission on Agricultural Extension and technology.
16. The Niti Aayog has been requested to put forth a strategy to address farmers' suicides.
17. Orders have been issued nominating nine Joint Secretary Level Officers in different states in order to coordinte with the State Governments for preparation and implementation of 3 plans of action for addressing this issue.”
2. Mr. Venugopal painstakingly took us through the details of the projects formulated by the Central Government and informed us, that 5.34 crore farmers, out of a total of 12 crore farmers, already stand covered by one or the other of the afore-mentioned schemes. In this behalf, it is also pointed out, that more than 30% of the gross cropped area should be taken as having been already secured. With reference to the number of farmers covered, it is submitted, that the figures will enhance to 50% by the year 2018-19.
3. Mr. Colin Gonsalves, learned senior counsel appearing for the petitioner, appreciated the schemes introduced by the Central Government, but complained about the deficiency in making them fully operational. It was submitted that if the objectives contemplated under the scheme are fully implemented, the problem of farmers' suicide will substantially be taken care of.
4. In response, learned Attorney General submitted, that the Central Government is dealing with the issue with all seriousness, as evidenced by the reasons outlined above, but it has also to be acknowledged that sufficient time should be allowed for the process of implementation so that the results emerge. He prayed for further time to the Central Government to deal with the issue on its own, and 4 requested that the matter be taken up after about a year's time, which will demonstrate, that the schemes on implementation have produced effective results.
5. We are of the view, that an issue like this cannot be dealt with overnight, and it is justified for the learned Attorney General to seek time to work out the schemes appropriately. We would, however, appreciate if the Central Government elicits the suggestions of Mr. Colin Gonsalves, learned Senior counsel (and his team) and while deliberating on those suggestions with Mr. Gonsalves, obtains suggestions towards stengthening the implementation strategy. Thereafter, it will be for the union government to determine whether and if so what, course should be adopted for achieving full implementation.
6. During the course of hearing, we were also assisted by Shri Rakesh Kumar, who has moved I.A.No.47108/2017, for seeking permission to assist this court as an intervenor.
He is allowed to assist this Court as an intervenor.
During the course of hearing, he invited our attention to certain suggestions, which were incorported in his application to appear and argue as an intervenor. In paragraph 15, we find the sum and substance thereof.
Paragraph 15 is extracted hereinbelow :
“15) On the basis of the existing policies and schemes run and managed either by Government of India or by Government of States, the suicides of farmers can be stopped from today itself but 5 only with the help of Hon'ble Supreme Court of India by adopting the below mentioned steps and processes with wide publicity throughout the country,-
a) Block Development Officer (BDO) of each block (CD Block), Sub-divisional Officer (SDO)/ Sub-divisional Magistrate (SDM) of each sub-division and the District Magistrate (DM)/ Deputy Commissioner (DC) of each district be immediately assigned the duty of providing Kisan Credit Card (KCC) through banks and in case of any failure in doing so all the above three should be made equally responsible with penal actions as decided by this court for any hurdle before the farmers in getting the Kisan Credit Cards (KCC).
b) In case of natural calamities like,-fire, flood, draught in the last stge of agriculture when the crop was standing, Hail Storm (Ola Vrishti), Frost, etc., bailout package of the amount of real price of the crop damaged like that given to industries must be given to the farmers in 48 hours to 72 hours by the administration and for that enough buffer fund must always be ready at the disposal of the district administration. For deciding the extent of damage we have enough infrastructure and enough manpower like,- Krishi Salahkar, Krishi Samanwayak, Vikas Mitra, Panchayat Sachiv, Tola Sewak etc. at the local level to access the damage. With the above mentioned employees even the BDO can make biweekly or even weekly survey of the standing crop and in this way real time damage of the crops can be easily assessed to decide the amount of compensation.
c) The provisions like maximum amount of compensation which may be rupees ten thousand (Rs.10000/-) per acre and that too for up to a maximum for two acres only irrespective of the any higher area of farm in which the damage was caused, be immediately abolished. Let the money flow to the villages.
d) In case of any failure by the farmer to deposit the KCC due, if the banks are using any illegal method or in case if they adopt any pressure tactic with the local goons or with 6 the help of any government agency like police, toughest possible action must be taken against them and if the police refused to register the FIR in such cases, the police persons must be booked under relevant sections like section 166-A of IPC. The role of Block Development Officers (BDOs), Sub-divisional Officers (SDOs)/Sub-divisional Magistrates (SDMs)/and District Magistrates (DMs)/Deputy Commissioners (DCs) be fixed by the apex court keeping in mind the seriousness of the issue even for a short period of time.
e) National Banking for Agriculture And Rural Development (NABARD) provide subsidy and loans to farmers for agro based small scale industries, but due to the apathy of the state officials and that of the banks, all such schemes become inaccessible to common farmers and they lose interest in all such schemes which not only harm the interests of farmers but also create hurdles in developing the infrastructure for agrigulture and allied activities. For example – for installing a plant of Peppermint Oil, which costs rupees five lacs (Rs.500000/-), 90% means rupees four lacs fifty thousand (Rs.450000/-) is in the form of subsidy, but even after application for the plant before the authorities, bankers and the authorities say to the farmers that you are getting rupees four lacs fifty thousand and so you have to give some amount to us also and in this way the farmer loses at least half of the subsidy amount and it becomes difficult for him to install the plant and after getting the money sanctioned the farmer also use it in some less important and the purpose of government funding is defeated and in this way the creation of agriculture infrastructure is derailed. The solution of this problem is a common website with online application for such benefits and in case of more applicants than the available units per year the allotment must be made through a transparent draw. This is very easy process in this modern age of technology. Another example is that of small godown for storage of onions at the expense of one lac rupees.
f) Computerization of land records accessible to the authorities or to all so that the 7 current landholding of farmers could be checked in no time to issue land possession certificates to farmers to issue KCC to them.
g) The first help to the farmers of the country can be extended by returning their extra recovered money by the banks while the farmers were depositing their due under loan waiver scheme of 2008. I have one example where the extra recovered money was returned by the bank.
h) In case of agriculture insurance scheme there must not be any premium to be deposited by the farmers or there must not be any automatic deduction of premium amount by the banks from the bank account of farmers or there is no need to such scheme at all and compensation of the amount of real loss be paid to the farmers because insurance is a profit making business and no one should be allowed to do profit making business at the cost of interests of farmers.
i) Keeping in mind the seriousness of the issue, there should be national level monitoring of the directions of this Hon'ble court in the present case only by the Supreme Court of India itself just for the next five years. The suicides of farmers will be automatically stoped at once as the killings and murders of the persons were stopped immediately after this Hon'ble Court took over the investigation of VYAPAM scam recently.
j) There must be wide publicity throughout the country, of all the steps taken for the welfare of farmers in this case, like full page advertisement in the newspapers etc.
k) There must be immediate Panchayat-wise survey about the number of farmers, with certain other informations like,-
Name of farmer No. of family Area of Staus of KCC members Agricultural land with amount ............ ............. ........... ...............
8For the whole of the country, following data for each Panchayat must be available,-
(i) Total number of farmers...........
(ii) Total Area of agricultural land........
(iii) Total number of KCC issued ...
(Functional+NPA=Total)
(a) Up to rupees fifty thousand (Rs.50000/-)......
(b) From rupees fifty thousand to rupees one lac ..........
(c) From rupees one lac to rupees two lacs ......
(d) Above rupees two lacs ......
(e) Total number of KCCs (Functional+NPA) This survey can be done in a fortnight with the help of employees mentioned in para-15(b).
l) Chief secretaries of each states must be asked to file an affidavit before this court for that they have taken affidavits from all the commissioners for that they have taken affidavits from all the DMs/DCs who in turn will get affidavit from all the BDOs and SDOs/SDMs that they have verified the status of possession of KCC for each farmer of their respective jurisdictions and all the farmers have KCC as per the existing rules and as per their convenience and in case if any farmer has no KCC and he don't want to get KCC issued in his/her name, the reason for that by the farmer must be taken in writing. In the affidavits by the BDOs and by the SDOs/SDMs their comments regarding problems, failures and success of KCC should be mentioned with suggestions if any. The findings of the survey by the BDOs and SDOs/SDMs must be published on a website dedicated to KCC like website of MGNREGA or that of Indira Aawas Yojana/Pradhan Mantri Aawas Yojana, which can be accessed by the public and the objections can be received for any wrong information on the website which should be corrected in less than 15 days.
m) Before procurement of food grains from farmers on MSP, a survey is conducted by the local administration to access the productivity of food grains per acre or per hectare and on 9 the basis of this survey the maximum limit of food grain which can be purchased per acre is fixed. So the result of this survey must be widely published well in advance before the process of procurement starts so that if there is any error in the data, it could be corrected to prevent any loss to farmers. For example when the applicant was working as BDO of Jagdishpur block in Bhojpur district of Bihar in the year 2015 during the paddy procurement season, several farmers complained me that the per acre limit for Paddy procurement fixed by the district administration is only two third of the real production per acre in that area, which was really a great harm to the farmers inspite of the availability of scheme to support the farmers.
(n) There must not be any delay in payment of price to the farmers when the farmer delivers the food grain to the procuring agency and in case of any delay liability must be fixed with penal provisions and in case there is lack of fund in the account of procuring agency there must be immediate transfer of fund to that account from contingency fund of India or from contingency fund of state and liability must be fixed for such lack of fund with penal provisions.
(o) In doing survey by the BDOs and SDOs/SDMs and while making this data online no laxity like that in case of Socio Economic Caste Census (SECC) be allowed. For example dring the SECC the family-wise data was collected in the proper format and the forms were filled manually by the enumerators in front of the persons of the family itself, which was generally extended to three pages. In case if in a family, the number of persons was 11 and on the first page of the form only three names could be filled and on the second page the names of other six persons of the family could be filled and the names of the rest two persons of the family could be filled and the third page of the form, then while entering the data on the website, the information available only on the first page of the form could be filled because the forms were not stored properly and all the pages of a form got separted from each other and could not be 10 traces in the pile of forms for the whole district. This happened because the agencies were not selected on the basis of available infrastructures with them but on some other unnecessary criteria.
(p) There should be immediate direction to the concerned governments and the concerned agencies to provide broadbank internet connectivity to all the block offices of the country to help the farmers and to protect their interests.”
7. The concerned authorities of the State Government may take into consideration the suggestions made by Mr. Rakesh Kumar, to the extent they are found to be feasible.
8. Post for hearing after six months.
........................CJI.
[JAGDISH SINGH KHEHAR] ..........................J. [Dr. D.Y. CHANDRACHUD] New Delhi;
6th July, 2017.
11
ITEM NO.8 COURT NO.1 SECTION III
S U P R E M E C O U R T O F I N D I A
RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS
Petition(s) for Special Leave to Appeal (C) No(s).29910/2014 (Arising out of impugned final judgment and order dated 10-07-2013 in WPPIL No.133/2013 passed by the High Court of Gujarat at Ahmedabad) CITIZENS RESOURCE AND ACTION INITIATIVE (CRANTI) Petitioner(s) VERSUS STATE OF GUJARAT AND ORS. Respondent(s) Date : 06-07-2017 This petition was called on for hearing today.
CORAM :
HON'BLE THE CHIEF JUSTICE HON'BLE DR. JUSTICE D.Y. CHANDRACHUD For Petitioner(s) Mr. Colin Gonsalves,Sr.Adv.
Mr. Choudhary Ali Zia Kabir,Adv.
For Ms. Jyoti Mendiratta,AOR For Respondent(s) Mr. K.K. Venugopal,AG UOI Mr. P.S. Narasimha,ASG Mr. Ajit Kumar Sinha,Sr.Adv. Mr. Mukul Singh,Adv.
Mr. Rajiv Nanda,Adv.
Mr. Mukul Singh,Adv.
Mr. R.B. Yadav,Adv.
For Mr. M.K. Maroria,AOR RBI Mr. Kuldeep S. Parihar,Adv.
Mr. H.S. Parihar,AOR State of AP Mr. Guntur Prabhakar,AOR Ms. Prerna Singh,Adv.
State of Assam Mr. Shuvodeep Roy,AOR State of Mr. Aniruddha P. Mayee,AOR Chhattisgarh Mr. Avnish M. Oza,Adv.
State of Gujarat Ms. Hemantika Wahi,AOR Ms. Jesal Wahi,Adv.
Ms. Mamta Singh,Adv.12
State of Haryana Dr. Monika Gusain,AOR State of HP Mr. D.K. Thakur,AAG Mr. V.K. Sharma,AOR State of J&K Mr. M. Shoeb Alam,AOR Ms. Fauzia Shakil,Adv.
Mr. Ujjwal Singh,Adv.
Mr. Mojahid Karim Khan,Adv.
State of Jharkhand Mr. Tapesh Kumar Singh,AOR Mohd. Waquas,Adv.
Mr. Aditya Pratap Singh,Adv.
State of Mr. Nishant Katneshwarkar,AOR Maharashtra Mr. Arpit Rai,Adv.
State of Manipur Mr. Sapam Bishwajit Metei,Adv.
Mr. Ashok Kumar Singh,AOR State of Nagaland Ms. K. Enatoli Sema,AOR Mr. Edward Belho,Adv.
Mr. Z.H. Isaac Haiding,Adv.
State of Odisha Mr. Som Raj Choudhury,AOR State of Punjab Mr. Karan Bharihoke,AOR State of Rajasthan Mr. S.S. Shamshery,AAG Mr. Amit Sharma,Adv.
Mr. Ankit Raj,Adv.
Mr. Raja Das,Adv.
Mr. Anish Kumar Gupta,Adv. Mr. R.K. Rajwansh,Adv.
Mr. C. Shekhar Suman,Adv. Ms. Deep Shikha,Adv.
Ms. Ruchi Kohli,AOR State of Sikkim Ms. Aruna Mathur,Adv.
Mr. Avneesh Arputham,Adv. Ms. Anuradha Arptham,Adv. Mr. Amit Arora,Adv.
For M/s. Arputham, Aruna & Co.,AOR State of TN Mr. B. Balaji,AOR Mr. S. Kumar,Adv.
Mr. Vairavan,Adv.
State of Tripura Mr. Gopal Singh,AOR Mr. Rituraj Biswas,Adv.13
State of Mr. Saurabh Trivedi,AOR Uttarakhand Mr. Ashutosh Kumar Sharma,Adv.
State of UP Mr. D.K. Goswami,Adv.
Mr. Adarsh Upadhyay,AOR State of WB Mr. Raja Chatterjee,Adv.
Mr. Chanchal Kumar Ganguli,AOR Mr. Adeel Ahmed,Adv.
Mr. Runa Bhuyan,Adv.
Govt.of Puducherry Mr. V.G. Pragasam,AOR.
Mr. Prabu Ramasubramanian,Adv.
UT of Andaman & Mr. K.V. Jagdishvaran,Adv. Nicobar Admn. Ms. G. Indira,AOR Intervenor Mr. Prashant R. Dahat,Adv.
Mr. Dhiraj I. Jain,Adv.
Mr. Puneet Yadav,Adv.
Mr. Venkateswara Rao Anumolu,AOR Intervenor Mr. Varun Thakur,Adv.
Mr. Varinder Kumar Sharma,AOR Ms. Shraddha Saran,Adv.
Applicant Mr. Jetendra Singh,Adv.
Ms. Kalpana Sabharwal,Adv. Ms. Priyanka Singh,Adv.
Mr. V.K.Kaushik,Adv.
For Mr. Yash Pal Dhingra,AOR Mr. Mukesh Verma,Adv.
Mr. Pawan Kumar Shukla,Adv. Mr. Bikash Kumar Sinha,Adv. For Mr. Yash Pal Dhingra,AOR Impleading party Mr. Atul Babasaheb Dakh,AOR Mr. P. Venkat Reddy,Adv.
Mr. Prashant Kr. Tyagi,Adv. For M/s. Venkat Palwai Law Associates,AOR Mr. Vinay Garg,AOR Mr. Shreekant N. Terdal,AOR Mr. Saurabh Trivedi,AOR 14 Mr. Rajiv Yadav,AOR Mr. C.K. Sasi,AOR Ms. Anil Katiyar,AOR Ms. Abha R. Sharma,AOR In-person UPON hearing the counsel the Court made the following O R D E R The matter is directed to be listed after six months in terms of the signed order.
(Sarita Purohit) (Renuka Sadana) Court Master Assistant Registrar (Signed order is placed on the file) 15