'Khalistanis Have Infiltrated Farmers Protests', Says Attorney General; Supreme Court Seeks Affidavit

The Supreme Court on Tuesday sought an affidavit from the Central Government on the alleged presence of banned organizations among the farmers protesting against the three farm laws, after the Attorney General submitted that "Khalistanis have infiltrated the protests".

The Attorney General KK Venugopal submitted that he will file the affidavit by tomorrow along with the necessary inputs from the Intelligence Bureau(IB).

A bench headed by the Chief Justice of India SA Bobde passed this direction while hearing a batch of petitions on farmers protests and farm laws.

Senior Advocate PS Narasimha, appearing for an association called the Consortium of Indian Farmers Association(CIFA), submitted that his client seeks to intervene in the case to support the farm laws.

The association's intervention application contained an allegation that groups like "Sikhs for Justice" are involved in the protests. Narasimha alleged that banned organizations are present among the protests.

At this juncture, the CJI asked the Attorney General if such allegations can be confirmed.

"Narasimha has made an allegation that there is a banned organization which is helping the protests. Will you confirm this?", CJI asked the Attorney General K K Venugopal

"We have said that Khalistanis have infiltrated into the protests", the AG replied.

"If there is an infiltration by a banned organization, and somebody is making an allegation here on record, you have to confirm it. You file an affidavit by tomorrow", CJI told the AG.

Later, towards the end of the hearing, the Solicitor General told the bench that there were certain non-farmer elements in the protests who are spreading wrong information about the laws to mislead the farmers. The affidavit filed by the Central Government in the case on Monday also contained a similar statement. The affidavit said there is "a deliberate wrong perception created systematically by non-farmer elements present at the protest site and using media / social media" to create misgivings in the mind of farmers about the farm laws.

At the end of the hearing, the CJI said that the Court will pass an order today to suspend until further orders the implementation of the three farm laws :

• 'Farmers' Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020'
• Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020' and
• Essential Commodities(Amendment) Act, 2020.

The bench also said that it was forming a Committee to hold talks between the protesting farmers and the government.

Supreme Court Suspends Implementation Of Three farm Laws Until Further Orders

CJI SA Bobde mentioned the names of Agricultural economist Ashok Gulati, Bhupinder Singh Mann, President BKU and All India Coordination Committee, Pramod Kumar Joshi( Director South Asia international Food Policy), Anil Ghanwat (Shethkari Sangathan) to be the members of the Committee, that is expected to resolve the deadlock between Government and protesting farmers. A complete order will be released by the Court, by the end of the day.

Complete updates from the hearing available here.