The Central Government has claimed that it “consulted” farmers before passing the three farm bills. But pointed questions by the Supreme Court and numerous RTIs have shown that the government was pulling a fast one. It is ridiculous to claim that crores of SMSes sent was consultation. Besides, these interactions happened after June 2020, i.e., after the ordinances were promulgated. Nowhere in the Bills has the government referred to any consultation or claimed that some suggestions were incorporated, writes PROF M SRIDHAR ACHARYULU.
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Believe it or not. The centre has claimed that it was consulting farmers for the last two decades. And from June 2020, after the three farm ordinances were issued, farmers were briskly contacted through webinars, and some 2.23 crore SMSes were sent to them.
But on January 11, 2021, the Supreme Court questioned the government for passing the farm laws without consultation. The same evening, the ministry of agriculture told the Court through an affidavit that they had consultations with many of the farmers for many years on these Bills.
CJI to AG Venugopal: We are extremely disappointed with the way Centre is dealing with this. What consultative process has been followed for Farm bills that entire states are up in rebellion.
— The Leaflet (@TheLeaflet_in) January 11, 2021
They even said that farm unions were peddling an erroneous notion that no consultations were held. The 45-page affidavit showed a hardening of stance against withdrawing the laws and asserted that these laws took shape after two decades of intense deliberations and consultations with stakeholders.
On January 11, 2021, the Supreme Court questioned the government for passing the farm laws without consultation. The same evening, the ministry of agriculture told the Court through an affidavit that they had consultations with many of the farmers for many years on these Bills.
A bench of Chief Justice SA Bobde and Justices AS Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian asked Attorney General KK Venugopal during the hearing what consultation process took place before the enactment of the laws. The affidavit filed narrated the sequence of events from 2000 when an expert panel under Shankarlal Guru was set up for farm reforms.
Law Minister’s Claims
Earlier, Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad claimed that “extensive consultations, trainings and outreach programmes (were) conducted on the Agriculture Laws with stakeholders”. He mentioned that “1.37 lakh webinars and trainings” had been held since June 2020 and 92.42 lakh farmers had participated.
Extensive consultations, trainings and outreach programmes were conducted on the Agriculture Laws with stakeholders. A total of 1 Lakh 37 thousand webinars and trainings were conducted since June, 2020 where 92.42 Lakh farmers participated. pic.twitter.com/HaNC02b6Na
— Ravi Shankar Prasad (@rsprasad) December 7, 2020
News18.com, quoting unnamed officials, said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had spoken about farm reforms more than 25 times. “He has spoken these to a wide range of audiences too, starting with the farmers and rural areas to global investors and Mann Ki Baat. He has also spoken about these reforms from the ramparts of the Red Fort on 15th August and also in the Bihar election rallies,” it claimed.
Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad claimed that “extensive consultations, trainings and outreach programmes (were) conducted on the Agriculture Laws with stakeholders”. He mentioned that “1.37 lakh webinars and trainings” had been held since June 2020 and 92.42 lakh farmers had participated.
News18 further said: “The ministry was consulting with various experts, progressive farmers, mandi officials and former officials and got feedback…. There were multiple meetings with FPOs through video conferences…. The ministry also consulted a prominent farmer’s union and even did a change in the ordinance after their feedback…The minister for agriculture had multiple meetings with state agriculture ministers, various farmer groups, political groups, aadhatiya groups and industry groups and participated in workshops organised by Krishi Vigyan Kendras.”
News18 gave further details: “…. the total number of training and webinar sessions conducted were 1,37,054 reaching out to 92,42,376 farmers between June to November 2020. Further, farmers were called for training at a common place in the Gram Panchayat. Moreover, 2.23 crore SMS messages have been sent to farmers during the month of October. The central government also reached out to farmers at the grassroots and conducted webinars and training sessions apart from making farmers aware about the reforms though SMS.”
All these interactions happened after June 2020, i.e., after the ordinances were promulgated. It cannot be said that they were consultations on promulgated ordinances. If there were any suggestions, they should have been incorporated in the draft Bills to replace the ordinances.
In June 2020, 708 trainings and webinars were organised covering 21,231 farmers, News18 added. In July, a total of 873 trainings and webinars were conducted, reaching out to 26,196 farmers. In August and September, a total of 852 and 840 training and webinar sessions were conducted respectively, covering 25,569 and 25,205 farmers.
A total of 36,102 training and webinar sessions, covering 27,07,977 farmers were conducted in October 2020. November witnessed 97,679 such sessions covering 64,36,198 farmers.
False Claims
All these interactions happened after June 2020, i.e., after the ordinances were promulgated. It cannot be said that they were consultations on promulgated ordinances. If there were any suggestions, they should have been incorporated in the draft Bills to replace the ordinances.
Except the News 18 report and the law minister’s claim over Twitter, were these “facts” officially mentioned anywhere? If a majority of the farmers agreed to the reforms, why was there no one from Punjab and Haryana? Why are they coming out on the roads risking their lives in the biting cold of Delhi’s winter, facing water cannons?
According to the claims of the law minister, all our farmers are rich as they can receive crores of SMSes from the government on their smartphones and give their opinions through webinars via their laptops and desktops with wonderful bandwidth and continuous power supply. Nowhere in the Bills has the government referred to any consultation or claimed that some suggestions were incorporated.
Why RTIs Were Denied?
Then why were the public authorities denying any information under RTI about these extensive consultations? Why were they relying on wrongful pretexts? The futility of the centre’s claim was obvious as it has considered talks in Bihar election rallies as “consultation”.
On December 11, 2020, RTI activist Anjali Bhardwaj asked for specific details regarding the stakeholder consultations. Within 30 days, two Central Public Information Officers in the agricultural marketing divisions of the ministry responded and claimed that they did not have any record of such consultations.
The law ministry did not hesitate to say that most of the consultation happened through video-conferences and webinars, which, anyway, was the only technology used in Covid times. Official claims alone prove that there was no consultation before the ordinances. It is ridiculous to claim that the crores of smses sent was consultation.
On December 11, 2020, RTI activist Anjali Bhardwaj asked for specific details regarding the stakeholder consultations that were supposed to have been held before the centre promulgated the ordinances in June. Within 30 days, two Central Public Information Officers (CPIO) in the agricultural marketing divisions of the ministry responded and claimed that they did not have any record of such consultations.
If the agriculture department had really consulted anyone, it should have the documents for it. If any other public authority was consulted, the ministry should have transferred the RTI request to it.
Interestingly, the CPIO gave a second response to Bhardwaj on January 13: “….. the information being sought for has been challenged in various Hon’ble High Courts as well as Hon’ble Supreme Court of India. As such being a sub judice matter it may not be feasible at this moment to provide information under Section 8(1)(b) of RTI Act, 2005.”
It added that the delay in providing a reply was due to the Covid-19 situation. Bhardwaj has appealed on the ground that the law does not allow for exemption merely on the grounds that a matter is sub-judice.
As per law, the CPIO can avail the benefit of 8(1)(b) only if he shows that the court had forbidden the disclosure of the information because sub-judice is no defence.
Response to NDTV
RTI requests from NDTV also faced the same fate. On December 15, NDTV filed a question with the Department of Agriculture, Cooperation and Farmer’s Welfare, seeking particulars of the consultations, if any. The applicant specifically asked if the centre had held any session with farmer teams earlier. They have also asked for particulars of those conferences, together with the date, names of farmer representatives who attended, the teams to which they were affiliated and particulars of different attendees, besides certified copy of the minutes of those conferences.
On December 22, there was a response from the chief public information officer, saying the government “does not hold any record in this matter”.
It is difficult to understand why the ministry did not disclose details of the consultation, the number of suggestions that came out of it, how many were accepted or rejected and the reasons for rejection. Out of two crore SMSes it claimed to have sent, how many responses accepted the reforms? If there was any acceptance, the government could have claimed the same in advertisements, affidavits and election rallies. Citizens should be informed about the details of the consultation, suggestions received and rejected.
(Prof M Sridhar Acharyulu is former Central Information Commissioner and Professor of Law at Bennett University, Noida. The views expressed are personal.)
