Supreme Court seeks Centre's reply on pleas seeking removal of protesting farmers from Delhi borders

New Delhi: The Supreme Court Wednesday (December 16) issued a notice to the Centre and others on a batch of petitions seeking removal of farmers camping at several roads near Delhi borders in protest against the three new agri laws. 

A bench comprising Chief Justice S A Bobde, and Justices A S Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian also indicated that the court may form a committee having representatives of the government and the farmer unions across the country to resolve the deadlock over the legislations.

In a hearing conducted via video conferencing, the bench directed the petitioners to make protesting farmer unions parties to the pleas and posted the matter for hearing on Thursday (December 17).
"Your negotiations with protesting farmers have not worked apparently till now," the bench told the Centre.

Meanwhile, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta told the bench that the government will not do anything against the interest of farmers. 

Multiple pleas have been filed in the SC seeking a direction to authorities to immediately remove the farmers, saying commuters are facing hardships due to the road blockades and the gatherings might lead to an increase in the number of COVID-19 cases.