Govt misled apex court on farmers’ issue: Congress

New Delhi, Jan 13 : The Congress has alleged that the apex court has been misled by the Central government on the farm laws that the deliberation has been going on for years. The Congress said that it’s contrary to what the government said in the court and there is no coherence in what the government says and what it does.
Addressing a press conference here on Wednesday, Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi said, “This is a serious example of the Central government misleading the apex court and misrepresenting to the people of India. The passage of legislations is an act of deception, dupery and defrauding.” The Congress said that on December 11, 2020, in reply to an RTI application which asked the concerned department of the government about the deliberations made before the passing of the laws, the reply was “this CPIO does not hold any record in this matter” and when minutes were asked prior to the ordinance, the same reply was given by the CPIO.
Singhvi alleged that the government had filed an affidavit verified on January 11 and attested by the secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture in the Supreme Court. In Para 2 of this affidavit, the Modi government had stated that the affidavit was being filed “for the purpose of dispelling the erroneous notion that the protesters have peddled that the Central government and the Parliament never had any consultative process or examination of issues by any committee before passing the laws in question”.
Thereafter, the affidavit straight away jumps to the following quoted conclusions in Paras 17 and 20, “It is submitted that the government of India has been, thus, actively and intensively discussing with the states for about two decades to achieve the objectives of reforms to provide accessible and barrier-free market system for better price realisation, but the states either showed reluctance to adopt the reforms in true spirit or made partial or cosmetic reforms.” Singhvi said, “It is thus clear that there are serious attempts at prevarication, distortion, misrepresentation and misleading of the nation, the apex court and all relevant stakeholders, apart from indulging in blatantly contumacious conduct. Not even perfunctory, much less any meaningful pre-legislative consultation was attempted, much less done by the Modi government.”