NEW DELHI: A plea has been moved in the Supreme Court for a direction to the Centre to consider the reasonable demands of the farmers and remove all barricading in their peaceful march and gathering in the national capital.
The development comes amid talks being held by the farmers leaders and the Union Minister led by Arjun Munda and stiff resistance put by the Haryana government to resist their movement towards Delhi, following the previous experience of violent incidents, including storming of iconic Red Fort on Republic Day in 2021.
The plea by Agnostos Theos, managing director of the Sikh Chamber of Commerce, contended restricting the farmers from entering the national capital without any due reasonable cause violated their right to travel freely throughout the territory of the country as enshrined under Article 19(1)(d) of the Constitution.
The plea, which made the Union, Haryana Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, and Delhi governments, and National Human Rights Commission, as parties, also sought a direction to unblock the social media accounts and respect the right to free speech of the people sharing information about the farmers protest.
The plea claimed the state governments have employed aggressive and violent measures like usage of tear gas, rubber bullet pellets, expired shells etc against peacefully protesting farmers, leading to serious and grievous injuries among the farmers.
The actions taken by the state governments by creating fortification across the borders of the national capital, creating hostile and violent situations against its own peaceful citizens and not allowing the farmers to exercise their democratic right, has led to direct and indirect defamation of the intentions and the objective of the protesting farmers," it claimed.
It alleged the peaceful farmers have been subject to conditions similar to terrorists by their own government, simply for the exercise of their democratic and constitutional rights.
The plea alleged the violation of the rights of the protesting farmers enshrined under Articles 14, 19 and 21 of the Constitution.
The farmers peacefully protested for their demand for the implementation of the recommendations of the Swaminathan committee as per their call for the protest for Dilli Chalo on February 13, it said.
The Union and State governments, in anticipation of the protest by the farmer, issued threats against the people in participating in the protest, fortified the borders of the state around the city of Delhi, with iron spikes, concrete walls, etc ensuring that farmers are not able to enter territory of the national capital, it said.
The plea said the farmers coming to protest for their rights even by their own private vehicles, from the state bordering Delhi, were forcefully arrested and detained by the respondent governments. Similarly, farmers coming from various other states of the county, to join the protesting farmers, were detained in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, and were also sent to other states, just to avoid them meeting with protesting farmers it said.
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