HC raps state for inaction against vendors who sold spurious soybean seeds to farmers

The Aurangabad bench of the Bombay high court has rapped the state government for not showing any inclination towards taking action against vendors supplying spurious

The Aurangabad bench of the Bombay high court has rapped the state government for not showing any inclination towards taking action against vendors supplying spurious soybean seeds to thousands of farmers in rural Maharashtra. The court took suo moto cognizance of news reports pertaining to complaints of 2,000 farmers who had purchased soybean seeds for sowing during the ongoing Kharif season, but the seeds did not sprout, and the farmers suffered losses.

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The court observed that the government did not show any haste in taking action against such vendors even though the farmers in Marathwada and Vidarbha region are poor and such fraud by the soybean seed vendors was detrimental to their survival.

A division bench of justice TV Nalawade and justice D Kulkarni on June 26, was hearing the petition initiated after news reports surfaced of farmers from districts like Nanded, Latur, Parbhani, Hingoli and Ahmednagar complaining to the authorities that soybean seeds purchased by them recently, did not germinate. The court said that in light of the reports it had asked the office to register suo moto public interest litigation to see that action is taken against the shop owners and the companies, if any, who had put such bogus seeds in the market. The court-appointed advocate PP More as amicus curiae to assist the court.

The minister for agriculture of the state on June 25, had expressed that there are no provisions under the Seeds Act, 1966 for taking action against the concerned. He further said that the state will try to see that farmers are given other seeds. Referring to this statement, the court said, “It can be said that the government, the concerned department has no intention to take criminal action against the vendors and producers of the bogus seeds, even when they have duped the farmers and they have caused huge loss not only to the farmers but to the country.”

The court then observed that as farmers incurred huge expenses while sowing the seeds, and such incidents occurred frequently, the matters cannot be closed only by supplying more seeds to the farmers by the state. “This season is more peculiar as due to the Covid-19 pandemic peculiar circumstances are created. These peculiar circumstances are used by the traders and so, the offence committed by them is grave in nature,” the court observed.

Holding that as the Seeds Act stipulated the minimum limit of germination and purity and the seed inspector had powers to take action against vendors supplying bogus seeds under section 420 of Indian penal Code. However, the failure of the seed inspector to initiate proceedings was prompting it to pass directions to the state.

The court directed the state to provide details of the date and number of complaints received by the police, nature of complaints, action taken by seed inspector at tehsil level, number of routine visits to shops selling seeds and seizure and testing of seeds and number of similar complaints received by agriculture department in last five years.

The matter had been posted for hearing on July 3 but was adjourned to Tuesday, July 7.