Govt denies RTIs on agri laws citing court hearings

Several RTI applications have been filed with the agriculture ministry and Niti Aayog since November 27, when farmers from Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh started their protests against the three farm bills.

Published on: Jan 22, 2021, 04:31:45 IST

By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The farmer bodies are seeking repeal of the three farm bills. (PTI file photo)

The Centre has cited hearings in the Supreme Court and high courts on the three farms bills and the Niti Aayog Council not having studied a report on amendments to the Essential Commodities Act as reasons to deny information on the these bills to separate Right To Information (RTI) applications filed by activists.

Several RTI applications have been filed with the agriculture ministry and Niti Aayog since November 27, when farmers from Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh started their protests against the three farm bills.

The farmer bodies are seeking repeal of the three farm bills. The government has ruled out repealing of the laws and said consultations were being held with states and other stakeholders over the past decade.

In his RTI application, Noida-based activist Vikrant Tongad sought inspection of all files related to the farm bills; another activist, Anjali Bhardwaj of Satark Nagrik Sangathan (SNS) wanted to know whether pre-legislative consultation on the bills was done.

In a reply to Tongad, Ashish Bagde, central public information officer of the department of agriculture cooperation and farmer welfare, said the information sought involves laws challenged in the Supreme Court and high courts. “As such being a sub-judice matter it may not be feasible at this moment to provide the information under section 8 (1) (b) of the RTI Act, 2005,” Bagde said.

Section 8 (1) (b) prohibits sharing of the information which has been “expressly forbidden to be published” by the court or tribunal and where providing such information may constitute contempt of court. “No court has so far prohibited the government from sharing of information on farm bills,” said Nikhil Dey, a member of National Campaign for People’s Right to Information.

Bhardwaj filed two RTI applications. The first was with the agriculture ministry regarding the consultation with agriculture department of various states, some progressive farmers and prominent agriculture mandi (market) officials with respect to the three Ordinances.

She received the same reply that Tongad did.

Her second RTI application was filed with Niti Aayog on the High Powered Committee of Chief Ministers for Transforming Indian Agriculture, which the Central government claimed, had recommended changes in the Essential Commodities Act. She sought a copy of the committee’s report, details of all meetings of the committee and its minutes.

During the debate on the introduction of the three farm bills on September 14, 2020, junior agriculture minister Raosaheb Danve said that the amendments to the Essential Commodities Act were discussed and approved by the high powered committee. The amendments have removed stock limits for agriculture produce such as onions, cereal, pulses and oilseeds from the list of essential commodities so as to remove fear of private investors of excessive regulatory interference. Punjab chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh has already refuted his claim.

In a response to the application, NITI Aayog’s central public information officer, Manash Chaudhary, said he was “constrained” in sharing the committee’s report as the same was yet to be placed before the Governing Council of the body. He also said the minutes of the meetings cannot be shared as they are part of final report.

Bhardwaj said the reply clearly shows that the final report has not been discussed with all chief ministers. “It is unfortunate as the issue of deliberations and consultations on the ordinances and legislations are a matter of great public interest,” she said.

Venkatesh Nayak of Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative said the government should have proactively put information about public consultations on three farm laws in public domain.

He added that this would have shown that “ the government has done excessive consultation with stakeholders, as being claimed by ministers, and the farm laws have backing of prominent farmer bodies”.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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